Students aim to change the lives of their peers one token at a time.
Standing on the platform of Bloor Station last year, Ben Leja, Colin Brown-Hart and William Egri and from Etobicoke School of the Arts hold up signs expressing what it feels like to be lonely, hoping to draw attention to homeless youth and raise money for Tokens4Change. Students will be out again Friday, Feb. 10 to raise funds benefitting Youth Without Shelter.
Staff file photo/ERIN HATFIELD
More than 400 student performers from 20 Toronto high schools will take to the rails later this month to busk for a brighter future for their homeless peers in Etobicoke - one token at a time.
Now in its second year, the Tokens4Change event - a joint project between Project: Humanity, a local non-profit organization raising awareness through the arts, and Youth Without Shelter (YWS), a north Etobicoke youth shelter - will see high school students from across the city converge at 25 of the TTC's busiest subway stations and five PATH locations on Friday, Feb. 10 to collect tokens for YWS' homeless youth.
Judy Leroux, YWS's development manager, said volunteers at last year's inaugural event were able to double their goal of 5,000 tokens by raising $30,000 - the equivalent of 10,000 tokens.
"People really dug deep, so this year we're aiming for more than that," she said. "That little token really opens so many doors for the youth here...in terms of the youth being able to travel to job interviews, being able to go to fill out a job application or go to complete community service hours to get that job experience. It's really about opening doors to employment."
Tokens also help YWS youth travel to school, to medical appointments and to counselling sessions, Leroux added, noting that YWS staff distribute upwards of 6,000 tokens a year to the youth who live in the shelter.
To date, 400 Tokens4Change volunteers have signed up to perform and collect tokens from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Feb. 10 at one of 25 select stations - Bloor, Wellesley, College, Dundas, Queen, King, St. Andrew, Osgoode, St. Patrick, Queens Park, St. George, Bay, Spadina, Bathurst, St. Clair West, Eglinton West, Yorkdale, Downsview, Kipling, St. Clair, Eglinton, Sheppard, Finch, Don Mills and Kennedy.
To prepare student performers for the big day, Project: Humanity organizers have spent January in classrooms across the city facilitating workshops to create the performances.
The results, said Tokens4Change founder Scott Parish, have been mind-blowing.
"When commuters walk by, they are going to be blown away with what has been created - we have hundreds of canvassers, actors, DJs, dancers and poets," he said in a statement. "For volunteers it's about giving our youth a future, but in a way that reveals a passion behind the support."
One of the groups Project Humanity has been working with is the Grade 10 Drama classes at ESA - all 50 students of them.
The workshops, said teacher Natasha Brault, have proved "inspiring" to her students, as have the classroom discussions about homelessness - a subject typically not taught during drama class.
"They've been excellent," she said. "There have been four workshops, during which we've been working on performances inspired by the students' own writings on the idea of home, and what it must be like not to have one."
Culminating this year's Tokens4Change event will be a party at 3:30 p.m. at Yonge-Dundas Square, featuring a 30-minute show of all the performances created for the day - including some by ESA students.
Also on hand will be sponsors Boston Pizza, who will hand out fresh pizza, and KiSS 92.5, who will have Devo Brown and DJ Clymaxxx live on location.
To donate to Tokens4Change, commuters are encouraged to stop at one of the designated stations between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., while non-commuters can give online at www.tokens4change.com/donations