Toronto Man Raises $37,000 for Food Bank By Dousing Himself in Expired Soup

Last month, Toronto resident Oliver O’Brien responded to an Instagram story from the Parkdale Community Food Bank account about a 14-year-old expired can of soup that had been donated. 

While the post was merely meant to remind people to not donate expired food, O’Brien, 27, decided he would offer to eat it in an attempt to raise money for the organization; the food bank agreed. The food bank’s Instagram account then offered donors the choice: make O’Brien eat the soup, or opt to simply have it poured over his head.

Over the next week, donations—mainly driven by a plethora of media attention to the bizarre story—began to pour in: Canadian grocery chain No Frills donated $5,000, followed by $2,000 from local radio personality Roz Weston, $5,000 from sex toy company Pink Cherry, and another $5,000 from Somar Development, a real estate company. 

By the end of the fundraiser, there were more donations for the soup—a can of President’s Choice condensed chicken noodle soup—to be dumped on O’Brien’s head than there were for him to eat it, which he says “was very relieving.” Fortunately for O’Brien, the can released such a putrid smell upon opening that the food bank provided him with three other cans of less-expired soup—one Habitant pea soup, one Campbell’s tomato soup, and one No Name cream of mushroom—to be doused with.  

“It wasn’t what I could call a pleasant experience but I much preferred that than having to eat it,” O’Brien said.

Ultimately, O’Brien’s drive smashed the original goal of $10,000 with a whopping $37,000. That number may seem like a lot on paper, Parkdale Community Food Bank manager Kitty Raman Costa said, but for a food bank that serves thousands of clients a month, the money goes by fast.

“We do a lot of fundraising,” Costa said, noting that the food bank does not receive any government funding and relies entirely on donations.

“We have a really, really supportive community, thankfully. But it does get tough, especially recently.”

Since March, Costa said that use of the food bank has risen by 50 percent; many clients are students, single parents, and undocumented folks, who would not be able to qualify for income assistance programs like EI or CERB.

And it's not just Toronto that is experiencing food insecurity. In a new report released last week, Statistics Canada estimated that, as of May 2020, around 5.1 million Canadians—or around 14.1 percent of the country’s population—qualified as being food insecure. That number is up four percent from 2018, and is expected to rise due to continued economic tumult caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

There’s also the 2021 Food Price Report, an annual study conducted in collaboration with multiple Canadian universities, which expects that food prices will rise by as much as five percent next year, costing the average Canadian family an extra $700. Researchers credit this change to two factors: COVID-19 outbreaks at processing plants and low oil prices, which have pushed down the value of the Canadian dollar, affecting the cost of food imports.

Perhaps in response to these reports, the Canadian government announced yesterday that, of the $100 million it has promised to spend on bolstering food banks next year, $30 million will go to Indigenous communities and another $65 million will go to local food organizations—a large portion of which is designated for giants in the sector such as Second Harvest and The Salvation Army.

For O’Brien, who has spent time volunteering with the Parkdale food bank, the lack of government assistance in addressing food insecurity with community-based organizations is troubling and indicative of a lag between politicians and the poor.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous how the government allocates our funds,” he said. 

“I’ve seen the vast amount of work that Kitty and her team put in talking to clients, talking about dietary and religious needs, coordinating how to get that food to them. All of this is being handled by a team of, like, 10 volunteers working for eight hours straight. It’s pandemonium.”

Follow Jake Kivanç on Twitter.