Along with support from CERIC, FoodShare Toronto received a two-year grant in 2010 from The Counselling Foundation of Canada for its Pathways to Youth Employment program. FoodShare Toronto is a non-profit community organization whose vision is Good Healthy Food for All. This organization takes a multi-faceted, innovative, and long-term approach to hunger and food issues. At FoodShare Toronto they work on food issues “from field to table” – meaning that they focus on the entire system that puts food on our tables: from the growing, processing and distribution of food to its purchasing, cooking and consumption. The funding allowed FoodShare Toronto to hire a co-ordinator to work with local food service business to ensure that the program’s training makes youth job-ready for those businesses. The learnings gathered in this process were used to develop a program manual to be shared with other organizations across the country looking to create youth employment opportunities based on food services.
This manual provides insight into how this program works and the components of this innovative youth employment program. It includes a detailed elaboration of why and how the Focus on Food – Pathways to Youth Employment program was designed as well as a breakdown of its policies and procedures. Content about the program’s placement model is also provided along with templates of the various administrative and marketing forms used in this initiative.