Food Letter To Don Boyle

August 8 2007

Dear Don,

I am writing on behalf of the Centre for Local Research into Public Space (CELOS) the not for profit research group which is currently assisting the on-site recreation staff at Dufferin Grove in their various food programs by handling the accounts related to food income and expenditure. As you know, recreation staff in partnership with the informal community group “friends of Dufferin Grove Park,” and more recently with CELOS, have been carrying out revenue-generating food programming for about 10 years now. This small-scale neighbourhood fundraising has been very slowly growing over time. To keep pace with the gradual increase in funds we have taken the following steps:

1)we switched our book-keeping from Microsoft Word to Excel spreadsheets 2)we updated our accounting program once again to QuickBooks 3)we consulted with a neighbourhood accountant who offered his advice free of charge 4)we added an accountant to out advisory council 5)we improved our nightly counting system to keep a closer watch on our ledger 6)we have asked the tax people to make a decision on the GST payments required from this fundraising.

Since the beginning, cheap food has been offered at Dufferin Grove primarily as a way to bring neighbours together and raise funds for other park programs and supplies at the park. We’ve also become interested in helping to test whether this approach to fundraising can add to the resources of other neighbourhood parks.

We have been following park budget reports and we note that the food concession system has brought in lower revenues than was expected. We’d like to suggest that our kind of small-scale food-related fundraising is an additional option for some neighbourhoods. Many newcomers are adept at preparing diverse kinds of street food. Now that the public health regulations are on the verge of changing, the Dufferin Grove approach may fit in well at other neighbourhood parks used by such newcomers.

It would be good now to take the next step. Since this way of fundraising seems to address park budget shortfalls in a very promising way, we think it’s time for Parks, Forestry and Recreation to be more actively involved in the management of these funds. We would be interested in discussing how best to do this, while ensuring that the money generated in any particular park is able to be used directly for improvements there. We would therefore like to request a meeting with you and anyone who would be helpful in such a discussion, at your earliest convenience.