Sometimes someone explains a piece of news to you, and it is so much to process that you are sure you are misunderstanding. That is how we felt when we read that Loblaws spent 14 years illegally fixing the price of bread and was giving out $25 gift cards to make up for it.
It raises so many questions! How did they “turn themselves in” after more than a dozen years? Is the price of bread going to go down now? How are millions of $25 gift cards scattered across the country going to have much of an impact?
Then we decided we could answer that last one ourselves. These gift cards won’t have much of an impact … but they could, if we work together and focus our effort.
At CSI, two of our core values are Together or Die and It’s Up To Us. We are always looking to nurture and animate ecosystems of mutual support. What better way to do that than to encourage our 3500 members to join together to send these cards where they are needed most?
Think about it this way. One $25 gift card maybe can’t do much, but what about 3500 $25 gift cards? Suddenly we are talking about nearly $90K worth of free groceries. That’s pretty serious.
So we reached out to our members and asked which organizations would like to be on the receiving end of this community support. Four groups came forward:
- Raising the Roof: Working to bring long-term solutions to ending homelessness.
- Tiwala Collective: Supporting newcomer women in accessing government services and programs.
- RTW Integrated Health Management: Working to enhance public health care and rehabilitation through innovation, evidence, and social justice.
- Let’s Get Together: Creating opportunities for parents to access learning resources that provide educational assistance and support student well-being.
We are so thrilled to have these groups among our members, and to be able to give the rest of our members a chance to help them in the work that they do. This is what that process will look like:
- Click this link and register now to begin the gift card process. (You just have to enter your email address).
- In the new year, you will get an email from Loblaws, letting you know the next steps. (We agree that it is a needlessly complicated process, but it’s what we’ve got to work with).
- When your card arrives, send it to the CSI member of your choosing! (We’ll share their addresses below).
That’s it! Bookmark this post to keep the address handy, and we’ll also remind you as the cards start to come out.
It’s not every day you have a chance to redirect tens of thousands of dollars worth of food. Thank you for wanting to be part of that with us. There is no better way we could wish each other a happy holiday season.
Raising The Roof
720 Bathurst Street,
Suite 201
Toronto, ON
M5S 2R4
Tiwala.ca Collective
720 Bathurst Street,
Toronto, ON
M5S 2R4
RTW Integrated Health Management Inc.
18 Wynford Drive, Suite 610, 6th Floor
Don Mills/Eglinton Ave E
Toronto, ON
M3C 3S2, Canada
Let’s Get Together
83 Kingsview Blvd,
Etobicoke, ON
M9R 1V1
