Earlier this year, they moved from their long-time Aurora location on Industrial Parkway South to fresh, dedicated space in Newmarket and with more space to call their own, they\u2019re looking at fresh opportunities to make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe YRFN started in 1986 and the initial efforts were really just to bring together all the local food banks and pantries in order to facilitate coordinated action going forward, so rather than having every municipality work independently, the YRFN came to kind of be that leader to help drive forward things like fundraising and those coordinated actions,\u201d says YRFN Executive Director Kate Greavette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Network\u2019s focus, however, saw a slight shift in 1993 when they gained access to a plot of land and were able to get a community garden program off the proverbial ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat was where we really kind of started to focus more on how we bring community out in order to provide fresh food access and have opportunities for folks to grow and do what they want with their own food, and it\u2019s just spiralled from there,\u201d says Greavette of the garden program, which is now operating in several York Region municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This shift saw community food banks, like the Aurora Food Pantry, operate more independently once again as the YRFN took different approaches to addressing a common problem. While providing food is key, they also focus on longer-term solutions to an issue that, unfortunately, isn\u2019t going away any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs an organization, we are really trying to adjust the physical, mental, and social health impacts of food insecurity [and] we do that through our immediate food access programs, our Affordable Markets, our Good Food Box and Meal programs that just provide that immediate relief for food,\u201d she says. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve also really learned over the years is people who might be living with food insecurity, but also just different demographics, often it can be seniors, people living with disabilities, there\u2019s a lot of loneliness, a lot of isolation, there\u2019s also stress and worries as well. A lot of our other programs around gardens, around our community cooking classes, it\u2019s really been about addressing those mental health and social health impacts so people can come in, they can reduce their stress for a few hours, they can feel more confident that they\u2019re going to walk away with some food and have something to rely on, and that they\u2019re going to meet people, form friendships, and connect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new space on Leslie Street, just north of Davis Drive, will not only allow them to continue programs York Region residents have come to rely upon, but expand their services as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While their old home in Aurora was in the former Aurora Cable building and shared by such organizations as the Aurora Food Pantry, Hope House Community Hospice, and Big Brothers Big Sisters Peel York, their new space is a former market and caf\u00e9, which lends itself well to the YRFN\u2019s vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was an unexpected opportunity, says Greavette, noting they were hopeful they would be able to stay in Aurora, but Newmarket ultimately offered the location that made the most sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis was the only facility we found that had a kitchen; it meant that there was no interruption of our meal programs or any of our culinary programs,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is also allowing us to expand our programming space. We just have a much better space up front to host community meals, our Affordable Fresh Food Market on a weekly basis, and it provides a little more potential for us to grow within the community as we were pretty maxed out at our previous location.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One key program they\u2019re eager to expand in the year ahead is their weekly Community Caf\u00e9, which is a lunch program for anyone who wants to come \u2013 no questions asked. It offers, she says, a hot meal, great company, and great service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their Cater Kitchen initiative is also expected to increase capacity. Held twice a month, participants prepare meals for area caregivers, which are then distributed by Hope House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, they\u2019re aiming to increase what they\u2019re able to offer on-site Market, which also operates out of 11 locations throughout York Region, such as Aurora\u2019s Northridge Community Church, including grains and more processed food options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis would be our pilot site to do that and see if we can take it elsewhere,\u201d says Greavette. \u201cWe have quite a few other plans in the works for the next year, but we\u2019re just waiting to secure some funds, so our aim is really to have this as a community hub, using food as that way to bring people in, bring them together, but be able to really focus on skills training and on the social connections that come out of our programs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the immediate future, the YRFN is focused on making their upcoming anniversary year one to remember.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The celebrations will kick off on February 27 with their 11th<\/sup> Winterfresh fundraiser at Aurora\u2019s Stonehaven Banquet Hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe do 100 per cent of our own fundraising and we have a budget of $1.4 million, and we raise 100 per cent of that,\u201d says Joanne Witt, Director of Fund Development for the YRFN. \u201cWe apply for grants at various government levels, but we get no consistent funding at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the YRFN looks ahead to the next few years, including their half-century milestone 10 years from now, they hope that funding issue, and the affordability crisis, become things of the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe want to feel very stable as an organization,\u201d says Greavette on where she would like to see the YRFN by the time they reach their fiftieth year. \u201cWe would love to get to the point where we don\u2019t have to describe ourselves as \u2018precariously funded\u2019 or \u2018precarious programs.\u2019 We want to make sure that what we\u2019re offering is very stable\u2026and we would love to see a world where we\u2019re able to focus on the food skills component of what we do, really working on getting people connected to the soil, growing food, cooking food, and being in a position where food insecurity rates are better so that we don\u2019t have to rely so much on that immediate food access side of things through the meals and the markets. We recognize that they play an important role and we want to keep them going, but we don\u2019t necessarily want to have to have to keep expanding\u2026because the community is in such vulnerable places and struggling with that food access.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\r\n .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":37402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/2025-12-25-01-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9Jn","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-03 08:41:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37410,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37409\/revisions\/37410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Facebook\"](\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F37409&t=Fresh%20beginnings%20for%20the%20York%20Region%20Food%20Network%20as%20it%20looks%20ahead%20to%2040th%20anniversary&s=100&p[url]=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F37409&p[images][0]=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F12%2F2025-12-25-01-scaled.jpg&p[title]=Fresh%20beginnings%20for%20the%20York%20Region%20Food%20Network%20as%20it%20looks%20ahead%20to%2040th%20anniversary\" "\\"Share")
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