COMMON PURPOSE OF CREATING HEALTHY COMMUNITIES FUEL SECOND HARVEST AND TORONTO ZOO PARTNERSHIP

TORONTO, ON, Friday, August 28, 2020: Your Toronto Zoo and Second Harvest are proud to announce an exciting new three-year partnership with the purpose of creating healthy communities, minimizing food waste and supporting food security. This collaboration establishes similar objectives that Second Harvest and the Toronto Zoo wish to work cooperatively on:

• Minimizing food waste in our community, in turn, lowering greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change
  
  
• Connecting and educating Canadians on the issues surrounding food systems and the environmental impacts of food waste
  
  
• Connecting our Staff and Volunteers to opportunities and activities that promote our missions
  
  
• Improving the health and well-being of the residents of the City of Toronto and the surrounding area

“Your Toronto Zoo is committed to improving the health and well-being of the residents within our community,” said Dolf DeJong, CEO, Toronto Zoo. “This new partnership with Second Harvest is a meaningful opportunity to work together to connect and educate about the reality of environmental impacts of food waste. From our perspective, the implementation of this partnership is an excellent example of significant collaborations in action to help the health and wellness of our community as a whole,” he added.

“In these unprecedented times, the role of collaboration to create a healthier world has never been more evident,” said Kiera Toffelmire, Vice President of Programs and Partnerships at Second Harvest. “The Toronto Zoo has already been a supporter of Feeding Our Future, our child and youth summer nutrition program, and we’re looking forward to working with them to increase knowledge of food waste prevention and environmental stewardship among Ontarians through this new initiative.”

About Your Toronto Zoo

The Toronto Zoo’s mission is to connect people, animals and conservation science to fight extinction and our vision is a world where wildlife and wild spaces thrive. More than a tourist attraction, the Toronto Zoo boasts a number of leading programs for helping wildlife and their natural habitats – from species reintroduction to reproductive research. A world-class educational centre for people of all ages, the Toronto Zoo is open every day except December 25 and attracts approximately 1.2 million guests each year.

About Second Harvest

Second Harvest is the largest food rescue organization in Canada and global thought leader on food recovery. We work across the supply chain from farm to retail to capture surplus food before it ends up in the landfill which negatively impacts our environment. Supported by hundreds of corporations, foundations, and the community at large, Second Harvest rescues and redistributes enough food to provide over 56,000 meals a day in Canada. Since 1985 Second Harvest has rescued and delivered more than 172 million pounds of food, preventing over 262 million pounds of greenhouse gas equivalents from entering our atmosphere.

Toronto Zoo Media Contact Information:

Amanda Chambers
Supervisor of Strategic Communications
[email protected]

Second Harvest Media Contact:

Benita Aalto
Acting Senior Manager, Marketing and Communications
[email protected]