10/12/2026
This Thanksgiving and as we ahead to another winter, I wanted to set the record straight about how we actually kept people alive over the last two winters.
Last winter hit a brutal minus thirty-six degrees. When it gets that cold, survival is not about politics or red tape. It is pure physics and basic human dignity. As the operations manager overseeing our winter initiative without any institutional funding or city support, I worked right alongside our team to protect our neighbours.
We relied on practical street level logistics. We used the Feed the People structure in the park as a heavy duty windbreak to block wind chill, elevated our seating areas with insulated subfloors to escape the cold ground sink, and deployed heavy tarps and Mylar blankets to lock in body heat. Combined with air activated hand warmers at key vascular points and hot community-donated sustenance like Mr Noodles, oatmeal, coffee, and tea complete with brown sugar and marshmallows, we kept core metabolisms running through the night.
Doing this without backing meant navigating plenty of hurdles. In our first year, the city issued a fire permit only to have it revoked because someone stuck their nose where it did not belong, leaving us to rely entirely on insulation rather than active heat. Last winter, the city waited until minus thirty-six to open warming centres, then authorized our grassroots network to give out referrals to their service when they realized we were the ones actually reaching people. We even handled everything from late night police inquiries asking what we were doing to early morning requests from those exact same systems asking for our help when crises hit.
Despite official claims about safety, we operated with minimal conflict. When people are in twenty-four-seven survival mode, high stress moments happen, but our team handled them with trauma-informed care and deep community trust.
Stepping in when lives are on the line is a moral imperative. This Thanksgiving, our deepest thanks go out to the community. Everything we were able to accomplish these last two years happened because of all of you. I am so grateful to everyone who contributed and saw the truth beyond the optics and media spin. Without city funding, you made this possible. We will always show up for our neighbours because keeping people alive must always come first.
