The Walls Down Collective exists to provide food, clothing, harm reduction, peer support, skill-building opportunities, weekly community engagement initiatives, and 24/7 community crisis response. There are a number of ways to get involved with our initiatives based on your availability and ability. We welcome anyone who has a willingness to learn better ways of caring for our communities, inviting you to explore community care practices through an abolitionist lens.
Weekly Food Distribution
To help address food insecurity, we distribute free groceries to poor, immigrant and refugee families every week. We meet Saturdays to shop, pack food hampers, and deliver food hampers to 30-40 households feeding 130-150 individuals weekly.
What's involved?
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Food sourcing
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Request intake
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Mapping
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Grocery shopping
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Hamper Packing
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Delivery
Community Engagement
We provide food and supplies for up to 300 people to support our city’s unhoused population. We meet every Friday night to organize a street pop-up with first aid station, street team to walk the downtown core, a mobile unit to visit LRT stations, and setup a warming station based on weather and space availability.
What's involved?
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Inventory of harm reduction supplies
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Shopping for food
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Packing lunches
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Food preparation
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Mobile unit
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First aid station
Anyone over the age of 18 is welcome to join us on a Friday night. We meet in the parking lot beside the Central Library and set up on the corner of 3rd St and 7th Ave S.E.
Alternative to Policing
We provide 24/7 rapid emergency response by keeping a phone running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the public to call for various matters such as physical and verbal altercations, drug poisonings, people experiencing a mental health crisis, people fleeing abuse, resource connections, peer support or simply someone to listen. This is to help lessen interactions and impacts local police have on vulnerable populations, and addressing matters with a care-first response free of criminalization. Our number is 587-969-6978 and we encourage the public to call us instead of calling the police.
Knowledge Sharing
Building our skills is necessary in the fight for justice, freedom, and liberation. We offer a wide variety of opportunities to share and absorb knowledge as it relates to mutual aid and abolition, and welcome individuals eager to participate in the creation of new networks of care and resistance.
(Image of Ash from Neighbour Knowledge, photo by Cinic Studio.)
