United: Working Collectively for Food Prosperity

The London Food Coalition was excited to attend the 3M United Way Harvest Lunch today, the kick off to their 2024 campaign. As the recipient of the day's proceeds ($10 from every lunch), the United Way and 3M are helping us help 25 other agencies to provide fresh food abundance to Londoners facing food insecurity. Tosha Densky, Chair, London Food Coalition spoke about our mission and expressed our thanks for this generosity. Her remarks are below for those who did not have an opportunity to hear her vision. Thank you United Way Elgin and Middlesex and thank you 3M. Your work and your generosity support our goal of healthy communities and healthy ecosystems.

"Tansi, Boozhoo, Bonjour, Hello. Thank you for this opportunity to share a few thoughts. What excites and inspires me is this year’s United Way theme: United. “When we stand united, we don’t stand alone.”

My name is Tosha, and I am representing the London Food Coalition today. We are a collective of 25 non-profit organizations and growing, thanks to your funding. Our members started weaving a story of Food Prosperity seven years ago.

Together, we leveraged our relationships—with each other and our communities. We shared a vision: collecting fresh food abundance and redistributing back to those in need. Healthy food, healthy people, healthy communities, healthy ecosystems.

The magic of our Coalition is that we are united. Collective impact requires collective effort—sharing resources and sharing the costs: of transportation, infrastructure, and logistics that make our system work.

When we hit lean times, as many of us have, we leaned into our community—to all of you, who are the United Way. “When we stand united, we build a better community for everyone.”

With your support, together, we’ve diverted over 1 million pounds of fresh food from local landfills and redistributed it back into our community. Because of you, over 50,000 Londoners have access to fresh, healthy food every week. Every partner, volunteer, and donor plays a critical role in this effort.

And we’re not stopping there. We want fresh food abundance to be accessible to all Londoners. We want every local farm, restaurant, business, and food producer to have an easy way to donate their surplus.

We have the resources and strengths here today to become a food prosperous community. In this room are people from across industries and sectors—food, manufacturing, vehicle sales and repairs, insurance, banking, investments, energy, and more. Together, we can organize fundraisers, donate through workplace campaigns, volunteer, and advocate. Each of us has something to offer, and our collective commitment will make food prosperity a reality.

The London Food Coalition is more than a group of agencies—it’s proof of what’s possible when we come together. Ensuring that all Londoners have access to fresh food is a shared responsibility. Beyond dollars and logistics, it’s about that shared belief that we all have a part to play in building a stronger, healthier community.  

In closing, I want to thank the United Way not just for funding, but for fostering a spirit of collaboration that inspires us to contribute—whether it’s food, time, or financial resources. Together, we are sharing the responsibility, and together, we are building a food prosperous future.

Miigwech, Merci, Thank you."