Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.

We are Gift the Front Line. Our mission is to show frontline workers our appreciation by sending them care packages filled with self-care gifts that promote mental wellness. We source products locally, which also helps to support small businesses.

What problem does it aim to solve?

Frontline workers, especially nurses, are experiencing burnout as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. About 1 in 5 nurses have left their jobs since the pandemic started, with many more projected to leave the profession over the next few years. Those who remain are understaffed and overworked, which is ultimately having a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing. Ontario has recently started offering a $5,000 retention bonus for nurses, but gestures such as recognition gifts are also a proven way to keep employees happy.

The other side is that local businesses have taken a big hit during the pandemic, with many going out of business. We want to help support these businesses by sourcing our gift products locally.

When did you start/join it?

I started this initiative in Dec 2021, along with two other co-founding members. We have since added several more volunteers.

What made you want to get involved?

I have close friends who are nurses, and others who are small business owners that have had to shut down, so I saw the toll the pandemic has taken on our community. I also lost some close relations over the last two years, and seeing the professionalism and empathy that the healthcare staff showed, despite what they were going through, was truly heartwarming. The lightbulb moment came when my wife, who works from home, started receiving employee appreciation gift boxes from her employer, and I thought that we can do the same for nurses. So I partnered with Arigato gifts, which is a new Toronto-based employee gifting company, to help source the gifts from Canadian businesses. Then I set up a GoFundMe page and shared it with all my contacts, and eventually got picked up by CP24 breakfast television, through which we raised almost $5,000 in donations.

What was the situation like when you started?

In Dec 2021, the Omicron variant was spreading rapidly, and little was known about it. The province went back into full lockdown.

How has it changed since?

The province is now opened up, but the BA.2 variant is continuing to spread, with cases on the rise in a ‘sixth wave.’ Even if the case counts do go down, sending gifts to nurses for all that they’ve already done over the past few years continues to be our goal.

What more needs to be done?

We are seeking more donations to be able to send more gifts to more frontline workers. As noted in my original email, we recently dropped off 200 gift boxes to Michael Garron Hospital, and they loved it. We are ready to send many more, but lack the funding.

How can our readers help?

By donating to our GoFundMe and by spreading the word.

Do you have any events coming up?

We have several hospitals reaching out to us for a gift drop off, but we will need more funding before we can schedule our next event.

Where can we follow you?

Website | Twitter | Instagram

PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome local charity that you love?

RC Forward

The post Charitable Choices: Gift the Front Line appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

In the first two weeks of vaccinations in Canada, 50,000 COVID-19 vaccines were distributed across the country. Ontario will have to vaccinate at a rate 13 times that of the entire country to reach its goal.

If this goal is achieved, it will be seen as a relatively speedy rollout of the vaccine compared to other countries who face both political and financial hurdles.

In the US, 1.5 million vaccines were distributed last week. Given that the vaccine requires two shots, 3 weeks apart, it is estimated that it would take years for the population to gain immunity. Though this is mainly due to political factors rather than the countries ability to secure vaccines.

The Peoples Vaccine Alliance says that rich nations have secured enough to vaccinate their populations 3 ties over leaving at least 67 poorer countries the ability to only vaccinate 1 in 10 of their populations. Five of those 67 countries – Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Ukraine – have reported roughly 2 million cases. The Philippines has only secured enough for roughly 2% of their 100 million population but has hopes that they can procure anywhere from 4-25 million doses from Moderna Inc and Arcturus Therapeutics Holdings Inc. An amount that would still leave them short.

With these harsh realities, it is safe to safe to say that many countries will be facing lockdowns for years to come while the wealthier countries vaccinate their populations first and more vaccines become available.

A joint initiative between The World Health Organization, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the Gavi Vaccine Alliance called Covax, aims to inoculate 20% of participating countries’ populations who would otherwise not be able to procure and administer them to their people. In this program, richer countries agree to help finance poorer ones through their purchasing of vaccines. Almost 200 economies are involved and over $2 billion has been raised so far to buy and distribute the vaccine to 92 eligible countries. The plan would require another $5 billion to reach their targets.

The post As Canada rolls out vaccines, many countries still fall short appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Describe your charity/non-profit in a few sentences.

For the duration of the lockdown in Toronto, Zvelle is gifting one pair of shoes every day to a healthcare worker. For 28 Days, Zvelle is celebrating healthcare heroes by gifting one pair of shoes a day.

What problem does it aim to solve?

We’d like to bring some joy to our beautiful city right now and celebrating women who are dedicated frontline workers is one way to do that.

When did you start/join it?

We first started our Healthcare Heroes gifting campaign when the first COVID wave hit, and Canada and many countries in the world went into lockdown. We wanted to celebrate the sacrifices of our healthcare workers and lift their spirits. We decided that we had beautiful shoes and we can use them to remind healthcare workers of better days to come and send them a gift that they can cherish. We are proud to have sent over 400 shoes to healthcare workers in Canada and the United States this year. Our Toronto Healthcare Heroes Gifting campaign is a continuation of what we did earlier this year.

What made you want to get involved?

As a company, we have been philanthropic since day one and generosity is one of our brand values. We believe in doing what we can when we can; it was a simple decision to use our life’s work to bring joy to the world.

What was the situation like when you started?

In Toronto, overall, it’s a challenging time for businesses being closed and the rising COVID numbers putting pressure on the healthcare system. The mood is down, and we wanted to change this.

How has it changed since?

It’s been a joy to send out shoes to healthcare workers and seeing how happy it’s made them. We are so proud of this.

What more needs to be done?

We can all do what we can no matter how small we think our action or effort may be. Generosity is something we can all use right now, so send that email, text or make that call to let someone know you are thinking of them and vote with your dollars always.

How can our readers help?

Join us on social media and help us celebrate healthcare heroes in Toronto. Follow Zvelle and share our updates about the healthcare heroes we are celebrating each day and each week.

Do you have any events coming up?

We are going to have 4 new Zvelle In Conversation interviews coming up that can be watched on YouTube.

Where can we follow you?

Instagram
Facebook
Twitter

PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome Toronto charity that you love?

I think there is not one choice this year. I am personally voting with my dollars this year and supporting local and independent businesses in our neighbourhood. At Zvelle, since the start of the pandemic, we have done everything we can to support our independent and family-owned suppliers who are counting on us to pay their employees and support their families.

The post Local Business Zvelle Donates Shoes to Healthcare Heroes! appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Jeffrey had been looking at the annex area for nearly 20 years, and upon opening, had no idea of how integral the role that the UofT students and faculty members played for small businesses in the area.

Before Daddyo’s was able to gain significant traction, the owners actually considered closing several times. Business was slow before they became a classic UofT pasta hub, but ultimately they had to decide that failure was not an option.

As the years progressed, Daddyo’s became very popular with the students surrounding it, and became more than just a quaint campus restaurant.

When you walk through the red door on the tucked away street, you enter a place of warmth and safety, somewhere that feels like home and brings comfort to many students as they endure some of the most stressful years of their young lives. Every year, thousands of new customers would pour in and continue to come back all the way throughout their undergrad. What is even more of a testament to the atmosphere that they have created, are the many people who continue to frequent Daddyo’s after graduating from UofT. Daddyo’s has truly created a community and a relationship with its customers, as they constantly engage with the going ons of the neighbourhood.

When you look up at the walls of the restaurants, you can see rows and rows of plaques, all displaying the donations and contributions that Daddyo’s has made to charities in the area, as well as support for the UofT Blues sports teams and University of Toronto Schools, the highschool affiliated with UofT that is right up the road.

As Jeffery told me, “It’s Daddyo’s nation, and everybody’s part of it. I’ve always respected my regulars, I’ve looked at my regulars as a community. When you put it in a situation like near UofT, I’ve been highly respectful because I love them, and they are my regulars”.

For the past several years Daddyo’s has been doing tremendously well, so well in fact that they were busy almost every night of the week with hungry college students in need of some mouth watering delicious pasta. “Up until the pandemic, we were enjoying probably the greatest success of my own personal business lifetime. We were doing what every small businessman dreams about, we had seen the results of our work and it was very good”, Jeffery said.

Unfortunately, once the pandemic began to escalate in March, the unimaginable results that they had been seeing were suddenly withering away, similarly to many small businesses in Toronto. Daddyo’s eventually “had to decide if we were gonna go forward with it, or just close up shop”.

Throughout this lag in business, Jeffrey described this covid anxiety that he felt. “For the first time in my life, I felt some real anxiety and depression over what’s going on.” One thing that helped them quite significantly, was UberEats. Previously they hadn’t been registered on the site because frankly, they had no need for it. However the thick of the pandemic it was one of the only things that kept them afloat.

In November, Jeffery made a video callout on social media explaining that the restaurant may not be able to survive on much longer without much business. Almost immediately, the video went viral as thousands of customers flooded social media hoping to spread the news about and save the long beloved restaurant. Within 2 days of the video being posted, the restaurant has been so packed every night, that they have been making nightly announcements that they have run out of noodles! “The last week has been totally insane!”, Jeffery exclaimed as he expressed his gratitude for the community who has rallied around them. “Right now I’m starting to choke up just think of the support, it’s been incredible! I mean people we haven’t seen in years and years!”.

After receiving over $3100 in donations, Daddyo’s has made an effort to take the generosity that their customers have shown and help other people, by launching the Daddyo’s Feeds Downtown Fund​. Jeffery decided that if people wanted to donate, Daddyo’s would take that money and buy Daddyo’s food at a good discount to give to the homeless and frontline workers in Toronto. This money would be divided into 500 meals, and be distributed by 80 meals per week. “This was an incredible opportunity to show the frontline workers support, and we’re gonna do the Scott Mission, and it’s just been an incredible opportunity to be able to distribute all of this joy”.

In collaboration with one donor who has experience in the health network and food distribution, and the Scott Mission charity, Daddyo’s will begin to distribute the meals through December starting on December 8th and then again after the New year. This initiative has been so far reaching, that they are even receiving donations from previous regulars who are now in all corners of the world such as China, India and South America – “all people who experienced Daddyo’s during undergrad have moved on, but I’m stuck with them in their head!”.

If you would like to order some delicious pasta and salads from the ​Daddyo’s menu​ please call or visit their location at ​673 Spadina Ave, and if you ​would like to donate to the ​Daddyo’s Feeds Downtown Fund ​please e-transfer whatever you are able to: ​pastaguy88@hotmail.com.

The post Local restaurant Daddyo’s pays community support forward appeared first on Toronto Guardian.

Canada is an enviable position – having purchased more vaccines per capita than any other country. But there is a lingering gap in our vaccine policy. What happens in the very rare instance that an individual should suffer an adverse event from the vaccine?

COVID-19 vaccines will go through the rigours of Phase 3 randomized clinical trial evaluations. They will have to meet regulatory standards for safety and efficacy. But there is a possibility that we will not detect extremely rare side-effects in Phase 3 trials.

COVID-19 is far riskier for some populations, yet we will need the majority of the public to participate in vaccination if our goal is to create herd immunity. However, there are real ethical challenges in encouraging everyone to be vaccinated without providing any support for rare adverse events that may occur as a result.

People who sustain harm while contributing to herd immunity should be supported by a national no-fault vaccine injury program that would provide a straightforward path to compensation.

Notably, Canada is alone among G7 nations in not having a vaccine injury compensation program, although the province of Quebec does have one. At least, twenty-five jurisdictions around the world have such programs, including countries such as Vietnam and Nepal.

No-fault compensation programs make sense for several reasons. First, as described, there is typically “no-fault” when someone experiences a rare adverse event. Best practices are in place, the vaccine meets regulatory standards for safety and the events are so rare that even if you are aware they exist, a reasonable person would still proceed to be vaccinated.

Second, these programs also promote vaccine industry innovation. In fact, a major reason for their introduction in the U.S. was that fears and costs of litigation, even if unsuccessful, had pushed many pharmaceutical companies out of the vaccine manufacturing business, creating shortages.

But perhaps most importantly, it’s simply the right thing to do. Vaccines are a public good and we should partake in these programs not only for our benefit but also for the benefit of others — in particular, the vulnerable.

If in the process of partaking in a public good one is injured, they should be provided with just compensation.

Which brings us to the COVID-19 vaccine. A program is needed even more urgently for these vaccines. An initial target group will be front-line workers who care for vulnerable populations. There will be an expectation, a pressure, if not a requirement that they be vaccinated. It would be unjust and antithetical to our current ethos that these workers, if in the rare instance they suffer a possible adverse event, would be left on their own.

This problem will be further magnified as we extend the vaccine roll-out to the broader population with the message to get vaccinated to protect yourself and others. We have provided financial compensation for individuals and businesses throughout the pandemic who have taken measures to help reduce the spread of the virus. We should continue that approach with the release of a vaccine.

How would such a program be designed? We have previously created guidance for such a program to be established in Canada and there are many international examples we could model and multiple jurisdictions which we could emulate.

Will creating a program to address rare injuries create undue anxiety over vaccine safety? There is no evidence either way on their impact on vaccine hesitancy from the jurisdictions we have studied.

Will they be expensive? There is no evidence that run-away costs have overwhelmed any of the programs we have studied precisely because vaccines are so safe.

We are strong supporters of vaccines and have confidence in their safety. It’s not too late for Canada to address this gap in our vaccination policy, first for COVID-19 vaccines, and then extended to all recommended vaccines.

By Kumanan Wilson and Jennifer Keelan

Kumanan Wilson is a Physician/Scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and a member of the University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics. Follow him on Twitter at @canimmunize

Jennifer Keelan, PhD, is the lead author of 2011 Munk School briefing on no-fault vaccine injury compensations.

The post It’s time Canada had a national vaccine injury compensation program appeared first on Toronto Guardian.