CivicAction’s DiverseCity Fellows Alumni are tackling some of the most pressing issues in our region. Sheldomar Elliott is no exception. Since the pandemic began, increasing numbers of people in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area have struggled to afford food for themselves and their families. In March 2021 alone, there were over 1.3 million visits to food banks across Canada—an increase of approximately 20% compared to 2019 (HungerCount, 2021)
Sheldomar Elliott is a food justice activist who is passionate about working to improve food access with a focus on ensuring the needs of BIPOC communities are prioritized. He was a member of the most recent DiverseCity Fellows cohort, completing the program in September 2022.
How would you describe your Fellows experience? What were the biggest take-aways for you during the program?
The Fellows program was really wonderful. I came into the experience not knowing too much about the program. A close friend suggested I apply and I was grateful to be accepted. The program really flew by. I met incredible people through this program and I can say that many of the people in my cohort are my friends now, which is powerful.
I hope this is not too cliché, but one of the most important things about this program is the power of collaboration. There were 29 people in my cohort and we all had different backgrounds. I have predominantly worked for grassroots organizations and I’ve done a lot of unpaid community work. I have focused on challenging systems that create inequity. Some of the people in my cohort had corporate backgrounds and I was intimidated because I did not know how I was going to connect with these folks.
Through this program, I learned about the importance of coming out of my comfort zone. When folks are caught up in their own work, they may not realize that they are operating in silos. The DiverseCity Fellows program forced me to step out of my silo. I started to think about how I can bridge the gaps in what we all do and work together to build a more just city.
You have dedicated much of your life to advancing food justice in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area. How did you become so passionate about food justice activism?
I spent a lot of time as a child with my grandmother in her garden in downtown Toronto. She was an immigrant from Portugal and grew a lot of food. At the time, I did not realize how foundational of an experience this was. As I got older, I became increasingly interested in the environment, the natural world, and food. I decided to study Environment & Urban Sustainability at Toronto Metropolitan University and I started to take more action to reduce my personal environmental impact, like becoming vegetarian.
Studying sustainability at university also challenged me to think about these issues on a macro scale, beyond just thinking about how I can change my personal consumption habits. While food feeds communities and cooking and growing food are ways to pass down culture through generations, food is also political. Many people in Toronto do not have access to fresh, culturally appropriate food.
I became very interested in how to advance Black Food Sovereignty, which addresses high rates of food insecurity in Black communities, anti-Black racism, and structural inequity in our local food system to create immediate and long-term changes to improve the health and well-being of Black communities.
Through this work, I was connected with many other like-minded community leaders and I ended up getting a position at FoodShare. Foodshare is an organization that works to dismantle systemic forms of oppression that exist in our food system and in our food movement by supporting community-based food initiatives and through ongoing advocacy and public education. I also became the co-chair of the Toronto Youth Food Policy Council and have held this position for the last few years.
How has the pandemic affected food security in our region?
The pandemic has had a huge impact on food security. The most direct impact is the rising cost of food due to inflation and food shortages.
I previously coordinated the FoodRX program at Foodshare, which directly addressed the food needs that were exacerbated by the pandemic. Through this program, we provided 200 healthy food boxes to families every two weeks and did regular check ins with all recipients to see how they were feeling and what they were cooking with the food. Folks often told me that this box was a lifesaver, which is a clear indicator that folks in Toronto have been struggling during the pandemic.
On the one hand, food insecurity is a policy issue. If there was more funding for social security and higher wages, folks could afford food and programs like FoodRX would not need to exist. Food insecurity is a symptom of poverty. Because poverty rates in our region are so high and there is not enough government intervention, FoodShare and other charitable organizations have to step in to support folks. And unfortunately, food insecurity rates are much higher in Black, Indigenous, and racialized communities.
It was hard for folks before the pandemic, but now the situation is even worse. It should be a priority to reduce poverty and ensure all folks have access to nutritious, culturally appropriate food.
Considering this, what approaches do you believe are the most effective to advancing food security in our community?
Ultimately, a two-pronged solution to hunger is needed.
The first is policy-based solutions. I believe that we need to support folks where they are at. Many folks are working jobs that do not pay sufficient wages to afford food. Other folks receive Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) payments and struggle to pay for their basic needs. I advocate that ODSP payments need to be doubled, as a start. Additionally, I believe that we need to pay people liveable wages. Minimum wages in Toronto right now are $15.50/hour, but researchers estimate that folks need at least $23/hour to support themselves, and even this amount is arguably too little. Folks are hungry. Children are hungry. We need to change the system.
Additionally, there is also a lot of power in communities taking ownership of their needs. Every community in Toronto is different. Through my work, I’ve seen the power of communities taking control of their own food needs by growing their own food and connecting with one another through gardening, distributing, and cooking food.
For example, in the community that I live in and work through FoodShare, many of the members are African, Caribbean, and/or Black. At the farm located behind Burnhamthorpe Collegiate Institute, we are growing food that the community wants like okra, bitter melon, and different types of greens. The food grown at this school is shared in Good Food Boxes but is also sold in Good Food Markets in the community, which sell produce at subsidized rates.
The food system in this community is very special – folks are building relationships with us farmers and in turn, know exactly who and where their food is coming from. But to build more community food systems like this, there needs to be government support in providing access to land, funding, and permits to grow food
Both policy-based and community-based solutions are crucial to building a food system that works for all.
Can you tell me more about Soul Food Project TO: Community Cookbook and what led you to organize this initiative?
The Soul Food Project was really special. This project started in the summer of 2020 and was a response to the pandemic. Everyone was locked in their homes, disconnected from one another. Additionally, there was so much racial tension in Canada and the United States. On social media, I was continually seeing brutal imagery of Black folks being attacked. I also observed what I would consider a lot of performative action, like people sharing certain photos thinking they were helping the cause, but in reality, they were not actually doing anything to address systemic racism.
My friends and I thought we would flip the narrative on social media and show stories associated with joy and care for one another. We put a call out to youth in Toronto and asked them to share recipes and photos that brought them joy during this hard time. We received some funding from the Confronting Anti-Black Racism unit. We put a cookbook together with these photos and recipes, which was really a labour of love. We received 20 submissions and we also included interviews with different growers and researchers. To me, this cookbook represents that despite how wild the world is, we can still take care of each other, and food plays an important role in this. It was special to me to feature Black youth as the cooks. The recipes are really great – some are culturally specific, and others are just straight comfort food.
It was never my intention to sell the cookbook, but we did sell a few and donated the proceeds to causes that support Black communities in Toronto. I loved this – I feel like the book contributed to an even bigger purpose.
As you are aware, one of CivicAction’s goals from the DiverseCity Fellows program and our other leadership programs is that leaders learn how to be more inclusive. In your opinion, how does investing in inclusive leadership help better tackle issues like food insecurity in our region?
To me, when leaders practice inclusive leadership, they are also working to be more emotionally intelligent, understanding, and compassionate. Zahra Ebrahim was a guest speaker at a DiverseCity Fellows session and she spoke about emotional intelligence. I am a cis-gender, heterosexual man and I was socialized to think that topics about emotional intelligence are not important. However, to really relate to people and truly hear where they are coming from, it is so important to build these skills. In my experience, open and emotional conversations with team members create stronger teams.
Through building skills in emotional intelligence, I have also learned how to better take care of myself and be gentle with myself. The work I do can be challenging – I am advocating to challenge systems and create real change. Especially in this work, it is so important to take care of your yourself and your team members. The strongest teams I’ve worked on are ones where all team members encourage each other to take breaks and replenish themselves. This way, we’ll all have the energy to keeping doing the work in the long run.
Practicing inclusive leadership also means recognizing your identity in spaces. For example, I work with a lot of femmes and people that do not look like me. I know that I have a lot of value in the knowledge, experiences, and insights I can share, but I strive to do so without taking up too much space. I aim to build environments where everyone on my team feels comfortable taking space to share their perspectives and ideas.
Inclusive leadership is so powerful. If leaders can create a space of dignity, honesty, and trust, the team has a better understanding of how to address challenges as they arise in a thoughtful, intentional, and compassionate way.
I believe that organizations can be more effective in working towards their mission, like ending hunger, if the foundation of the team is strong.