Volunteer Recognition

Second Harvest is grateful for each volunteer who comes out to help – whether it’s for an hour, every week, or once a year. We would not be able to continue the work we do without the support of our amazing volunteers.

Every year we recognize special volunteers who we feel have gone above and beyond in their commitment and service to Second Harvest.

2018 Second Harvest Award Recipients

5 Years of Service

Ann Clement
Ann-Marie Ceballo
Barry Telford
Jean-Pierre Beauparlent
Jerry Cautillo
Kathryn Ellis
Ken Nakamura
Nicole Caguiat
Sandrine Lam
Shawna Pereira
Yan Moore

10 Years of Service

Alexa Clark
Cheri Dueck
Chiara Switzer
Janice Fish
Kathryn Starostecki
Zoe Cormack-Jones

15 Years of Service

Charlie Dougall
Lynn Wilson

Outstanding Achievement Awards

Outstanding Achievement Awards recognize the dedication of an individual or group, who go above and beyond in their volunteer role(s), demonstrates commitment and supports the work of Second Harvest.

2018 Outstanding Achievement Award Recipients

Pamela Neblett started volunteering with Second Harvest back in 2007 and has never missed a Toronto Taste in 12 years. She’s also participated in many other events and has always shown her support at awareness events and volunteer appreciations. Pamela is always in an upbeat, positive mood with a ton of energy that is infectious to the people around her.

Karen Hardy started volunteering in the summer of 2018. She began assisting our Development Department by providing administrative support which quickly took on more responsibility as her help was requested by a lot of staff members. We love working with Karen, she’s dedicated to getting the job done and it’s always a pleasure chatting with her.

Kathryn Ellis & Yan Moore first started volunteering in 2007 at Toronto Taste. Since then, they have supported Second Harvest at Hero Day, Toronto Taste, numerous awareness and fundraising events, and they have been co-leading Turkey Drive shifts since 2013. We can always count on this dynamic duo to help out.

2018 Corporate Volunteerism Award

This annual award recognizes a corporation/business partner that has provided exceptional and ongoing volunteer service for Second Harvest. It has embraced our mission and has become a pillar of support to our organization.

TD Bank has been volunteering with us for over 10 years. To date, they have contributed over 1,300 hours of volunteer service helping with Food Sorting, Feeding Our Future, the Second Harvest Hero Campaign, and Turkey Drive – not to mention the hundreds of individual employees who also personally support Second Harvest. TD has consistently been one of our top 10 fundraisers – and our #1 fundraising campaign for the past 7 years.

2018 Mike Kic Spirit Award

Mike Kic was a dear friend of Second Harvest whose willingness to serve and his commitment to our mission knew no bounds. No task was beneath him, no time was too early or too late, and no request for support was too much.  This annual award is presented to the volunteer who strongly supports our events and food/fundraising initiatives, in roles such as committee membership or event volunteers.

 Tamara Ramsey has been volunteering with us since 2009. She supports all of our initiatives including Turkey Drive (where it all started), our Hero Workplace Campaign, Toronto Taste and community events. She’s an incredible leader who not only rallies her colleagues, family and friends to volunteer – she also motivates and inspires fellow volunteers to do their best.

The Ian Lawson Van Toch Outstanding Youth Volunteer Award

During his time with Second Harvest, Ian demonstrated outstanding leadership, and commitment to community service.  This award is presented, as warranted, to an exceptional young person or group, under the age of 21, who embodies a spirit of passion and initiative in their work with the community and Second Harvest.

The most recent recipient of the Ian Lawson Van Touch award is Voice Integrative School.

Through Voice Integrative School’s annual Global-to-Local campaign, their Grade 5 and 6 students identified the need to address food waste and food rescue in their community and engaged in a multitude of fundraising activities to become the campaign’s top fundraising school. Together they raised close to $5,700 – enough to provide over 11,300 meals to our Agency Network.

Rhys Baldwin, a Grade 5 student in 2017 who alone raised over $1015 of his school’s total funds.