Fund honours dynamic couple, ensures food for Kingston school children

By Skana Gee

They were a well-known and much-loved couple in Kingston: Larger-than-life Zalman (Zal) Yanovsky, former lead guitarist and singer for the rock band Lovin’ Spoonful, and his “anchor” Rose Richardson.

They ran two successful eateries – Chez Piggy and Pan Chancho Bakery – and frequently gave of their time and resources. They believed in making Kingston a vibrant place.

When Zal died suddenly in 2002, just before turning 58, Rose created a fund in his honour to help The Food Sharing Project, which has operated breakfast, lunch and hearty snack programs in the city since 1982. Friends and colleagues contributed $20,000 in seed money to launch the endowment.

“We love food and we want people to eat and be healthy and happy. It’s a bit astonishing, how many children are at school hungry,” says Zal’s daughter, Zoe, in a video about the program.

Now known as The Rose and Zal Yanovsky School Breakfast Fund – Rose died in 2005 – the endowment with the Community Foundation for Kingston and Area provides funding to The Food Sharing Project for food, equipment and supplies, while the 75 participating elementary schools provide space and volunteers to run a program tailored to their needs.

It’s a gift of not just food, but care and hope. “It nourishes the mind, body and soul,” says one staff member who’s been involved.

Adds principal Brenda Moore, who runs the project: “We know that you can’t teach a child anything if they’re hungry. That’s got to be the first order of the day.” An inspiring speech by Brenda about the program can be found here.

Thanks in large part to an annual fundraising breakfast, during which restaurant-goers make a donation to the fund, The Rose and Zal Yanovsky School Breakfast Fund now stands at $167,000, with close to $36,000 donated over the years to the Food Sharing Project, which these days helps more than 3,800 students.

“The hope is that people will leave a donation on the way out, and they certainly do – they do so in droves,” notes Zoe.

Skana Gee is Communications Coordinator with Community Foundations of Canada.

Vital Signs reveals 16 per cent of Kingston residents living below poverty line

By Vikram Varma

Kingston & Area’s 2011 Vital Signs talked about the working poor, revealing that more than one in 10 of the people using food banks have a job.

The Kingston Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction recently released a Living Wage report for Kingston, in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. A living wage is based on the principle that full-time work should provide families with a basic level of economic security, not keep them in poverty. It is the amount needed for a family of four with two parents working full-time to pay for basic necessities, support the healthy development of their children, escape financial stress and participate in their communities.

Executive Director Vikram Varma

In Kingston, the report calculated that a living wage amounts to $16.29 an hour, for each parent working full-time, year-round jobs. This is substantially higher than the Canadian minimum wage and almost 35,000 people in Kingston’s regional labour force have yearly incomes below the annualized equivalent of minimum wage.

We at the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area realize the minimum wage is not sufficient for Kingstonians to earn a liveable income and an equitable standard of living. As a result, 16% of Kingstonians subsist below the poverty line and about 13% of Kingstonians are identified as working poor.

The Roundtable hosted a discussion on the living wage last fall featuring well known economists Don Drummond and Jim Stanford as the keynote speakers. I was happy to hear Mr. Drummond mention that one initiative that had proven results in breaking the cycle of poverty was Pathways to Education, one of the programs for which we have helped raise funds.

Vikram Varma is Executive Director at the Community Foundation for Kingston & Area