CBC Toronto's Sounds of the Season raises more than $1 million for local food banks

CBC Toronto's Sounds of the Season raised more than a $1 million dollars for food banks in the Greater Toronto Area in 2023.

Thanks to your generous donations, it's the third time the annual fundraiser has passed the million-dollar mark.

This year's total — $1,013,373 — was more than $150,000 than the previous year. Food drives across the GTA also gathered more than 36,000 pounds of non-perishable food.

"CBC audiences continue to amaze me," said Ruth Zowdu, Senior Managing Director of CBC Ontario Region.

"Through our work on Sounds of the Season, we focus our storytelling efforts on food security and the growing need in our community and, once again, those in our audience who are in a position to help have stepped up in a tremendous way. We're very grateful for their generosity."

Enquiring Minds Montessori won the 2023 Sounds of the Season School Challenge for the second year in a row. With 100 students in its student body, this small but mighty school collected the most food per student of all participating schools. In total, 18,911 students participated in this challenge across the GTA. (Submitted by Melina Sameer)

Sounds of the Season kicked off in early December with a full day of programming at the Toronto Broadcast Centre, including live broadcasts of Metro Morning and Here and Now from the Glenn Gould Studio.

Local food banks say more and more people have been turning to their organizations for help since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. That demand has only increased as the cost of living has gone up.

"This year has seen an unprecedented need in our community. One in 10 Torontonians need to make use of a food bank. That's up from one in 20 last year," said Neil Hetherington, the CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank.

"Fortunately, CBC viewers, listeners and readers have been there through Sounds of the Season," he said.

Sounds of the Season is part of CBC's nationwide Make the Season Kind campaign, which celebrates kindness and generosity with special programming and events. This year, teams across the country helped raise more than $9 million for food banks across Canada.