Help Maggie's Toronto Buy An Outreach Vehicle!
As we enter fall/winter in Toronto an outreach vehicle would help Maggie's expand its support to sex workers across Toronto and the GTA! An outreach vehicle (van, small bus, RV) would help Maggie's:
- Expand its current reach in community and support sex workers and grassroots organizations across Toronto and the GTA more directly.
- Expand its capacity to hand out heavy duty supplies like sleeping bags, tents and other winter-related gear for unhoused communities.
- Expand its capacity to provide warm meals, snacks and other food/drink options.
- Allow temporary shelter from the cold while running programming and services in Toronto's downtown east end.
Maggie's Toronto is one of Canada's oldest sex worker justice organizations serving Toronto's downtown east since 1986. Maggie's is a by and for sex worker justice organization offering drop-in and harm reduction programming, social and political advocacy as well as legal and personal supports to community across Toronto and the GTA. The pandemic has radically altered how we're able to do this work, and since March of 2020 we've expanded our supports to include:
- COVID -19 Emergency Survival Funds - Maggie's has provided more than 1,000 grants to sex workers impacted by the pandemic through our COVID-19 Emergency Survival Funds including a joint initiative with Butterfly: Asian & Migrant Sex Worker Support Network and our most recent Black Sex Worker Emergency Survival Fund.
- Emergency Food boxes - Maggie's is working with Foodshare Toronto to provide bi-weekly deliveries of fresh vegetables to community members facing food insecurity.
- Vaccine clinics - Maggie's has partnered with community organizations and healthcare providers from Toronto Public Health, Unity Health, Sherbourne Health and Anishnawbe Health to run vaccine clinics that have allowed more than 1,600 people to access first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
- Therapy + mental health supports - Maggie's has launched individual and group counselling programs for community members with specific programming for Black sex workers, and non-binary, trans and 2spirit communities looking to access gender affirming surgery.
Because sex work is so heavily criminalized and stigmatized in our community, by and for organizations like Maggie's are often first responders in cases of violence against sex workers, police brutality and incarceration, and key spaces for community members to seek out support and advocacy when these things are denied by the public, police, courts, healthcare workers, social workers and other institutions.
Maggie's led work to find Alloura Wells following her disappearance in 2017, ran court and jail support efforts for Moka Dawkins from 2018 through 2020 and now continues to support queer and trans, Black and Indigenous Communities of Colour (QT/BICOC) through culturally specific programming, services and resources.
Why an outreach vehicle?
As we enter the winter months, an outreach vehicle (van, small bus, RV) would help Maggie's:
- Expand its current reach in community and support sex workers and grassroots organizations across Toronto and the GTA more directly.
- Expand its capacity to hand out heavy duty supplies like sleeping bags, tents and other winter-related gear for unhoused communities.
- Expand its capacity to provide warm meals, snacks and other food/drink options.
- Allow temporary shelter from the cold while running programming and services in Toronto's downtown east end.
These funds will go directly to Maggie's for the organization to determine what make/model works best for their needs based on the current programs, services and resources they've invested in.
Learn more about Maggie's Toronto:
