What We Give

Today, my guest is Utcha Sawyers, the Executive Director of the Boys and Girls Club of East Scarborough. She is an internationally recognized food and social justice expert, land steward, and educator. She was born and raised here in East Scarborough, which makes her a saint of the universe. In addition to being the full-time Executive Director, Utcha and her family raise organic food, sheep, goats, and other animals on an 80 acre farm north of Toronto.

On today’s show, I’ll be joined by Omar McDadi. He’s the Superintendent of the Rouge National Urban Park -- Canada's first National Urban Park and the biggest Urban Park in North America! Omar began his career with Parks Canada back in 2004 as a student wildlife biologist. Since then, he’s spent time in all sorts of roles including park interpreter, mountain guide and fire information officer. I’m pleased to talk to him about future plans for the park. Here’s my conversation with Omar.

Today I’m sitting down with Neil Hetherington. He’s the CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank. It supplies fresh and shelf-stable food to more than 130 member agencies across Toronto and supports 175 food programs. It is also a national leader in researching the causes and impacts of food insecurity. Neil exemplifies the Churchill quote that we use in this program and “we make living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

This episode will feature Liz Buller- the President and CEO of Scarborough Health Network- the third largest health network in Ontario. Liz and I discuss the impact of the pandemic on Scarborough and how immediate and concrete steps are being taken to mitigate the impact of any potential second waves.

In this episode I speak with Wisdom Tettey-- Principal of the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) and Vice-president of the University of Toronto. Wisdom’s area of expertise is in political science, focusing on the African diaspora, politics and media. He is well positioned to lead to UTSC through these challenging times. Fun fact: UTSC has for the last seven out of ten years produced the top undergraduate scholar in the entire UofT system.

On today’s episode I’m speaking with Dip Habib, one of Scarborough’s true saints. He manages Volunteers, Events and Facilities at the East Scarborough Storefront and has helped make it the vibrant hub it is today. Dip always stands up for the Kingston-Galloway/Orton Park community. His contribution is vital to the East Scarborough community. In 2012, Dip was honoured with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal Award and in 2017, the Scarborough-Guildwood Parliamentary medal.

Hello, I’m John McKay - the Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Guildwood. Winston Churchill once said -- “We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” This podcast is called What We Give. It features the remarkable ways people are contributing to our community. Subscribe now to What We Give on your favourite podcast player and stay tuned for new episodes regularly.