A controversial meal token program aimed at transforming one of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods will land in Toronto this spring courtesy of a local, socially-minded celebrity chef.

Rodney Bowers, chef and restaurateur, has big plans to launch his version of the initiative in one of this city’s most underprivileged areas before summer.

“On the street, there are a lot of people less fortunate walking around, I see them all the time,” Bowers says. “It’s a simple idea. Hopefully we can get those people fed good wholesome food.”

The Toronto program will operate much like the west coast initiative already in progress: buy a meal token at a reasonable price, hand it out to someone in need and the recipient can exchange it for a freshly made, healthful sandwich.

Bowers, owner of popular eateries Hey Meatball and Hey!, is still fleshing out the details, but says his program will focus on the community that surrounds Hey! at 89 Roncesvalles Ave., which includes Parkdale. It’s a neighbourhood fraught with poverty but groaning under the weight of gentrification.

Bent on putting “better food in people’s mouths,” Bowers says introducing meal tokens is a way to get everyone eating better while giving back to the community where he spends much of his time.

But the program has its detractors. Some poverty activists say it’s little more than a Band-Aid and won’t solve systemic hunger issues. And, they say, it’s method of delivery is dehumanizing.

“The idea of people handing out tokens on the street, it’s unpalatable,” said Amanda Montgomery, of The Stop, a community food centre aimed at increasing access to healthy food. “It feels undignified.”

Heartened to see chefs engaging in important food issues, Montgomery says the program can help meet immediate hunger concerns, which is important, but she encourages those running it to come up with a better plan: one that takes the power imbalance out of the transaction between giver and receiver.

Bowers plans to hand out information about the program at his restaurants, he says, and feels good about what he’s doing. If we start to draw big issues into every problem,” he says, “we’d never do anything.”

Some anti-poverty activists in Vancouver say the meal tokens send an insulting message that homeless people can’t be trusted with money.

Mark Brand, founder of the Vancouver program, celebrity chef and social activist, is unfazed by controversy or naysayers. He says his program has already seen success and is feeding hungry people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, a neighbourhood known as Canada’s poorest postal code.

Many tokens have been purchased so far, possibly thousands — though he doesn’t have an exact tally — and people have been redeeming about 120 tokens a day at the sandwich counter of his bustling food emporium Save on Meats, Brand says.

In exchange for a token, which cost $2.25 and can be purchased in store or online, Brand’s employees hand out hot ham, cheese and egg sandwiches on freshly baked biscuits.

Brand resurrected Save on Meats, a 1957 butcher, added a diner, sandwich counter and has turned it into a “social enterprise,” he says. He employs people who have trouble finding work elsewhere, such as those with mental or physical disabilities or newly released from prison and, among other initiatives, supplies close to 500 impoverished people with daily meals, 365 days a year, at a “very reasonable cost.”

Initially, Brand wanted to start a system where those in need could exchange a form of currency for fresh ingredients at his store, but the concern was the currency could be traded for narcotics.

The meal token program, he says, gets around that issue and is a way of bringing together diverse populations — those who have and those who do not.

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“People have no idea how to help and they feel crippled by it and marginalized by it,” he says. “I’m trying to make it very simple to introduce people into a conversation.”

Brand, also a television personality, spent part of last summer in Bowmanville, Ont., with Bowers shooting episodes of Million Dollar Neighbourhood, a reality show about improving neighbourhoods. The two chefs hit it off.

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