Toronto Maple Leafs Stepping Up to Help Health Care Workers

The Toronto Maple Leafs, as an organization, is stepping up to help their community in a unique way. This week MapleLeafs.nhl.com reported that the team has created a giant food preparation and delivery program that will create and serve up to 10,000 meals a day for front-line health-care workers in the Toronto area.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE), the parent company of the Maple Leafs, has created a planned program to turn Scotiabank Arena, which in better times serves as the home to both the Maple Leafs and the Toronto Raptors, into Toronto’s biggest kitchen. As noted, it will prepare and deliver thousands of meals each day to those who are taking care of others.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment Is Clear about Their Reasons to Help

Michael Friisdahl (whose photo is at the beginning of this post), the President & CEO of MLSE, was clear about the organization’s intentions and the reasons why MLSE got involved.

He noted, “Scotiabank Arena normally serves as a gathering place for fans to be entertained and cheer on their teams, but today, as the world deals with the overwhelming impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, our arena will serve as a place for people to come together and support our community when it is most in need.”

He added, “In a time of crisis like we are experiencing, many different needs emerge, and we saw this as a chance to use our facilities and engage our people to serve our community.” 

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Partnering with Second Harvest

MLSE is also networking to make the kitchen work. It was reported that Second Harvest will help with this unified effort by providing fresh ingredients daily. For those who don’t know about Second Harvest, it is Canada’s largest food rescue charity with a mission of both environmental protection and hunger relief.

Second Harvest “recovers” unsold food from over 700 food businesses before it becomes waste and then distributes it within a network of more than 370 social service organizations and food hubs. This free service helps feed people in school programs, seniors’ centers, shelters, food banks, and now through the Maple Leafs.

Although it sounds like I’m writing an advertisement for Second Harvest, I believe that such good, charitable work should be noted. In the 34 years that Second Harvest has been in existence, it has recovered over 140 million pounds of healthy food and has feed literally thousands of people in need.

According to its own website, Second Harvest has also prevented 128 million pounds of greenhouse gases from entering the Earth’s atmosphere. For those who care, every dollar donated helps Second Harvest to provide food for two meals.

Here at NHLTradeTalk.com, we want to say thanks for the good work of the Maple Leafs and Second Harvest.

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