culture
Youth Charity Tries to End a Contentious Transit Week on a High Note
Why the TTC will be full of singing teenagers on Friday, but that's a good thing.
Be sure to bring some extra change if you’re taking a TTC trip tomorrow. No, there hasn’t been a fare increase secretly included in this week’s transit upheavels. But there may be a mob of teenage mimes at the subway station asking, in their way, for spare cash and TTC tokens.
It’s all part of Tokens 4 Change, a one-day drive to raise money for Youth Without Shelther, a charity that provides housing and services to homeless youth.
Last year’s inaugural event saw 250 high school students from across the GTA stage performances in 10 TTC stations and raise over $30,000. (The video, above, will give you a sense of what went down.) This year will involve more than 400 students fanned out across 25 TTC stations and five spots along the underground PATH to perform and collect donations.
“When commuters walk by, they are going to be blown away with what has been created,” Scott Parish, one of the Tokens 4 Change founders, is quoted as saying in the press release. “We have hundreds of canvassers, actors, DJs, dancers and poets. For volunteers it’s about giving our youth a future but in a way that reveals a passion behind the support.”
Events will be taking place above ground too, with performances at Yonge-Dundas square in the afternoon. And one of the event’s sponsors, Boston Pizza, will be handing out free pizza around 3 p.m.
So even if you don’t care at all about donating to a charity that provides kids with support when the world has given them so little, you can always get some free food. But don’t be that guy.