East Scarborough Storefront turns 10.
Healthy Living Visual Arts Project coordinator Fazilatun Nessa Babli speaks to her students before their second annual exhibit Friday at the East Scarborough Storefront.
Staff photo/CHLOE ELLINGSON
Its anniversary party this Friday - a few speeches, some music, plenty of food - won't be nearly as remarkable as East Scarborough Storefront's achievements over 10 years.
Storefront started as a crisis response to the hundreds of homeless people the city sheltered in Kingston Road motels but left "virtually stranded," with few services to help them.
Because residents of the Kingston-Galloway area welcomed it as a resource, Storefront, a "beautiful mix" of 35 or so separate agencies located for years at the Morningside Mall, became the "social infrastructure" of the neighbourhood, executive director Anne Gloger said this week
To have people from so many social services operating from one place was revolutionary, recalled Gloger, who was impressed the first time she heard their goals.
"I saw a lot of hope coming out of it."
Storefront relied on the "community speak" model, and people from the neighbourhood were very vocal about what they were missing, Gloger said.
"Our success is down to a collaborative and inclusive approach. Anybody who wants to improve the neighbourhood is welcome."
After a long decline, the Morningside Mall was demolished, and Storefront's current headquarters, a former Toronto police sub-station at 4040 Lawrence Ave. E., will be decorated with photographs for tours during the party Friday from 3 to 6 p.m.
Volunteers planted a community garden beside the building, which is slowly being transformed so the community can make better use of it.
Renovations that created a new resource centre are done. The next phase, adding an Eco-Food Hub with an industrial kitchen will close the building in August, but some programs will continue across the street at a second set of offices called The Point, or elsewhere.
Last Friday, children from ages six to 16 displayed their work at the Lawrence Avenue location for the Healthy Living Visual Art Project, a free class teaching such topics as dental hygiene and sun safety as well as drawing and painting.
Typical for Storefront in being generated by the community it serves, the program was started in 2009 by local parents and the volunteer who continues to run it, Nessa Babli.
Gloger predicted Storefront, during its next decade, will try to involve more partners, bring employers to the community or help residents start their own businesses.