[URBAN NOTE] "The East End Pop-Up Shop for Syrian Refugees"

[rfmcdonald]

Torontoist's Catherin McIntyre describes a pop-up effort for refugees in east-end Toronto.

After seeing images of three-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body washed ashore in Turkey back in September, Caroline Starr felt compelled to do something. She wasn’t certain what that something would be, exactly, so she called some fellow East End moms together for a brainstorm session.

“We thought about sponsoring a family,” says Starr, “but then we realized that was crazy, because we all have one-year-olds and full-time jobs. This was supposed to be less work,” she says glancing around “The Hub,” a free pop-up shop for Syrian refugees that’s brimming with household items. “It’s turned into not less work at all,” she adds, tired but proud.

The Hub is the most recent initiative by East Toronto Families for Syria (ETF4S), the grassroots organization that Starr and seven other local women founded in response to the Syrian refugee crisis. At the time of its inception, the women didn’t know how many—if any—refugees Canada would take in, but they started making welcome baskets anyway. They put a call out to the community to donate kitchen and bathroom supplies, and the response was overwhelming. “We were a bit wary of accepting too much stuff,” says Starr. “We thought, ‘what if this doesn’t happen?’ At the same time, it felt like kind of a given that something was going to happen. There was just so much public outcry.”

Sure enough, the new Liberal government quickly acted on its promise to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees, and ETF4S ramped up its efforts.