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The Bag of Toronto is a grab-bag of specialty goods from local businesses in the city, delivered right to your doorstep! 

Since 2020, Bag of Toronto has been supporting local businesses in collaboration with BIAs. They are back with a Mother’s Day edition and Riverside is in the Bag.

The Bag of Riverside covers Queen Street East from the Riverside Bridge to De Grassi St. and is generously supported by us, the Riverside BIA. Each Bag of Riverside will have an assortment of five to seven products from a selection of the businesses listed here. And if that wasn’t enough incentive, Bag of Toronto will be making a donation to our local charity of choice the Ralph Thornton Community Organization.

Order your bag here while quantities last!

Delivery of the bag will be on May 8th, just in time for Mother’s Day.

Bag of Toronto’s Story.

The Bag of Toronto team started this project to support local businesses during a time when community is more important than ever.

The first iteration of this project ran from April – June 2020, and featured businesses along Bloor St West. During the 2020 winter holidays, we expanded to include over 55 businesses in five neighbourhoods around Toronto. We also ran an edition for each of those five neighbourhoods for Valentine’s Day in 2021.

Over the last year, they have been able to distribute more than $100,000 into local businesses, and donated over $6,500 in profits to charities in each neighbourhood.

There’s no doubt, our main street businesses are hurting in many ways and need ongoing support to get through this pandemic. Read our letter sent along with other Toronto BIAs to our provincial leaders asking for outcomes including more financial support for Toronto-based businesses, policy that is driven by transparent statistics, and clear lines of communication.

April 9, 2021

To our provincial leaders,

Re: Urgent Ask for Additional Supports and Clarity for Main Street Businesses

The Riverside District, Queen Street West, Bloorcourt, Leslieville and West Queen West BIAs are five of Toronto’s 80+ BIAs. We collectively represent approximately 1300 small and medium sized businesses and property owners. The views expressed in this letter come from our direct consultations with our members.

While we recognize that efforts have been made to support our businesses during the ongoing pandemic, not enough has been done. Our members are looking for outcomes including more financial support for Toronto-based businesses, policy that is driven by transparent statistics, and clear lines of communication.

In summary, what is needed:

More sustained financial support for Toronto area businesses who have been on the longest lockdown in North America – with geographic considerations toward fixed costs:

• Remuneration for sectors that were publicly informed of reopening timeframes and then ordered to abandon reopening plans (including but not limited to health, fitness, beauty, wellness, retail, restaurants, and hospitality)
• Introducing a sector-specific program for covering reopening and closure costs, such as wasted inventory, staffing costs, etc.
  Inclusive financial support programs that ensure all types of businesses in need are able to participate (i.e. new businesses that have opened during the pandemic, single person businesses).
• Immediately and permanently cease the 6% markup that restaurants pay for alcohol from the LCBO.

Scientific and evidence-based decision-making for policies and regulations:

• Transparency is needed with credible facts and sources to identify the reasoning for strong and major business closure actions taken by the provincial government

• A clear path is needed now for how businesses can plan for re-opening for the remainder of 2021, following the current stay-at-home/ lockdown order, aligned with statistics, clearly associated KPIs (e.g. based on case counts, vaccination rates)

Clear lines of communication

• Outline a clear plan for how lockdown measures will be eased to avoid any further unnecessary costs for reopening and closing of businesses. News releases must immediately come with updated detailed regulations and orders.
• Create a reasonable and clear set of rules for vaccinated people to remove uncertainty for our public-facing main street businesses

Due to the financial devastation that has been produced by the actions provincial government measures have been enacted to date, some businesses are taking risks under the strain they are experiencing. The only way to navigate past this reality is to directly address their concerns transparently on a financial, mental and emotional level.

We are already losing the character of our neighbourhoods and the social and economic diversity in all sectors of industry. The measures we have outlined are what business leaders need to see now to prevent decimation of our main streets.

See the full letter here

The Opera House in Toronto’s Riverside neighbourhood, along with Lemmon Entertainment and PRG have all come together to launch The HUB. The HUB is a full broadcast + content capture studio located at the Opera House, 735 Queen Street East.

The HUB has secured their first shoot which will capture content for ‘The Lost Tapes Live’. The Lost Tapes Live, a Lemmon Entertainment production, is a virtual broadcast that gives an in-depth look into the complex relationship between talent, fame and tragedy through interviews, testimonials and live performances.  The Lost Tapes Live was created in support of Lost Tapes of the 27 Club campaign. 

The campaign by Over The Bridge spotlights the music industry’s mental health crisis. 

The Lost Tapes of the 27 Club campaign has officially launched

To show the world what’s been lost to this mental health crisis, Over The Bridge, an organization that empowers musicians and to reclaim their lives from their mental health struggles, used artificial intelligence to create the album the 27 Club never had the chance to. Through this album, they’re encouraging more music industry insiders to get the mental health support they need, so they can continue making the music we all love for years to come. 

“It’s through these songs that we’re showing musicians, and the public, what could have been had artists not lost their lives to mental health issues.”

Did you know:

• 68% of musicians have experienced depression
• 71%of musicians believe they’ve experienced incidences of anxiety and panic attacks
• Suicide attempts for music industry workers are more than double that of the general population

What do they want to achieve with this campaign?

“We want everyone in the industry to know that there is support.” 

• Mass awareness for those working in the industry to know that there are organizations like Over the Bridge that are there for them to help.
• Raise awareness that those working in the music industry are a vulnerable community, especially during the pandemic.
• Create a talking point for those in the industry and wider media to talk about mental health in the music and entertainment industry, focusing on de-stigmatizing and challenging the romanticized belief that creativity comes hand-in-hand with suffering.

Get engaged and share the campaign. The music and campaign live online as a microsite, a Spotify album, and a YouTube playlist:

Visit www.losttapesofthe27club.com for more information.

SHARE:

Campaign Website link
YouTube playlist link
Spotify playlist link

#LostTapesofthe27Club