Roundtable participants
Anna Banerji
Associate Professor, Pediatrics, University of Toronto Pediatrics, Infection Disease, Tropical Medicine & Public Health; Executive Director, North American Refugee Health Conference Inc.; Consultant Pediatrician, Newcomer/Refugee Health and Infectious Disease, St. Joseph’s Health Centre and Toronto General Hospital
Dr. Anna Banerji is a pediatrician, an infectious, tropical disease specialist, a public health specialist, and a human rights advocate. As a physician, educator, and researcher, she uses a human rights framework to inform her advocacy, where her focus has been on refugee and Indigenous populations. In 2024, she was named among the Top 25 Women of Influence in Canada by Women of Influence+. Dr. Banerji is the Founder of the North American Refugee Health Conference (NARHC) in Canada, which has become the largest academic meeting on refugee health globally.
Judith Barry
Co-Founder & Government Relations Director, Breakfast Club of Canada
Fueled by the desire to create social change, Judith Barry cofounded the Club des petits déjeuners (Breakfast Club) in November 1994. She wanted every child to receive two key elements for learning: a nutritious breakfast and a caring and inclusive environment. Barry went on to play a pivotal role in the founding of Breakfast Club of Canada in 2005. Over the years, she contributed to implementing a variety of innovative approaches, such as student engagement, training programs, community empowerment, impact evaluation work and stakeholder collaboration.
Levi Beardy
Board Director, Action Against Hunger Canada, GTA; Senior Pastor, Aboriginal Believers’ Church
Levi Beardy has served as a Senior Pastor at Aboriginal Believers’ Church in Toronto Since June 2016. Levi serves as a Director at the Kids Against Hunger organization, which is headquartered in Peterborough, Ontario. The organization involves community members in tackling hunger, both in Canada and globally.
Gurbeen Bhasin
Founder and Executive Director, Aangen
Gurbeen Bhasin is the founder and executive director of Aangen, a non-profit community service organization dedicated to producing high-nutrient meals for marginalized communities, based in Toronto. A trained social worker, Gurbeen established Aangen in 2000, following in the footsteps of her ancestors who always welcomed and supported community members facing challenges. Bhasin has served as project manager of a global human rights initiative, a senior analyst at the Canadian Mental Health Association, and as an entrepreneur and creator in Toronto’s independent arts sector.
Rupaleem Bhuyan
Associate Professor and Ph.D. Program Director, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto; affiliate faculty, Women and Gender Studies Institute; Fellow, Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research
Dr. Rupaleem Bhuyan’s research explores how temporary and precarious immigration impacts immigrants’ access to social and health care services, including immigrants’ response to gender-based violence. Her interdisciplinary background in International Studies, Cultural Anthropology and Social Welfare allows her to integrate interpretive policy analysis and community-based participatory action research to address the socio-cultural and political context of migration, social rights, and gender-based violence.
Jasmine Ferreira
Director, Programs and Evaluation, The STOP Community Food Centre
Jasmine Ferreira serves as a Director of Programs and Evaluation at the STOP Community Food Centre, which strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds health and community, and challenges inequality. A Ph.D Candidate and Registered Social Worker, she has worked in a variety of non-profit settings over the past 10+ years in crisis intervention, residential programs, health care, and youth unemployment. More recently, she has focused on project delivery, policy, and social work education.
Neil Hetherington
CEO, Daily Bread Food Bank
Neil Hetherington began his career in project management at Tridel Construction, Canada’s largest condominium developer. In September 2000 he moved into the non-profit sector, spending 16 years at Habitat for Humanity first as CEO in Toronto and later New York. After two years at the helm of Dixon Hall, a multi-service agency, he became CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank in 2018. Neil has led the organization through the challenging times of COVID-19 and the subsequent exponential growth in demand that has resulted in today’s food insecurity crisis.
Christina Hyland
Clinical Social Worker and Holistic Nutritionist
Dr. Christina Hyland is a Clinical Social Worker and Holistic Nutritionist based in Ontario. She holds a doctorate from the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, where she pursued research in the area of homeless and/or street involved youth, looking specifically at the mental health implications of food insecurity, nutrition and eating struggles.
Matt Johnstone
Executive Director, FoodShare
Since January 2024, Matt Johnstone has served as Executive Director at FoodShare, a Toronto-based food justice organization, advocating for the right to food and working to challenge the systemic barriers that keep people from accessing the food they need to thrive. Johnstone has experience across various sectors, including food insecurity and mental health, much of it in Vancouver’s downtown east side.
Cari Kozeriok
Executive Director, Ve’Ahavta
Cari Kozeriok is the Executive Director of Ve’Ahavta, a Jewish social services organization serving people of all faiths and backgrounds facing poverty and homelessness in Toronto since 1996. An experienced business professional, Kozeriok spent over twenty years as an entrepreneur in the for-profit natural health industry before moving into Jewish community work. She held Executive Director positions at prominent synagogues, including Adath Israel Congregation and Beth David Synagogue.
Carmen Logie
Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto; Adjunct Scientist, Women’s College Research Institute; Adjunct Professor at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment & Health
Dr. Carmen Logie is a Canada Research Chair in Global Health Equity and Social Justice with Marginalized Populations. Her research advances understanding of, and develops interventions to address, stigma and other social ecological factors associated with HIV and STI prevention and care. She is particularly interested in understanding and addressing intersectional stigma and its sexual, reproductive, and mental health impacts, with a focus on HIV and STI.
Shae London
Executive Director, the STOP Community Food Centre
Shae London has served as an Executive Director at the STOP Community Food Centre based in Toronto since July 2022. The STOP strives to increase access to healthy food in a manner that maintains dignity, builds health and community, and challenges inequality. Shae was engaged with The STOP for ten years before taking on the role of Executive Director. She began as a volunteer, then worked as staff in community programs, and eventually became a member of the board of directors.
Shehab Mansour
President, University of Toronto Student Union Food Bank; President, Executive Committee, University of Toronto Students’ Union
Shehab Mansour is completing a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto, with expected graduation in spring, 2025. As President of the University of Toronto Students’ Union, Mansour is responsible for seeking out and representing the views of 40,000+ students at U of T. The UTSU Food Bank has been running since 2001 and aims to address food insecurity on campus by operating a free, year-round Food Bank open to all University of Toronto students in need of food. This service provides support to single students and students with families.
Anne-Marie Newton
Chief Philanthropy Officer, Centre for Addition and Mental Health Foundation
With over 20 years in the field of institutional advancement, Anne Marie Newton has devoted her career to securing philanthropic support for leading education and healthcare organizations in the United States and Canada. Prior to joining CAMH Foundation as Chief Philanthropy Officer in January 2023, Newton served in progressively senior roles at Duke University, Crescent School and SickKids Foundation. She was recently appointed the new President & CEO of the CAMH Foundation, effective May 5, 2025.
Adaoma Patterson
Director of Community Service Investment, UWGT
Adaoma Patterson has more than twenty-five years of progressive experience in the not-for-profit and public sectors and has served in several roles as a volunteer and employee. In 2022, she joined the United Way Greater Toronto as Director of Community Service Investments, responsible for ensuring their investments support a strong network of more than 300 agencies in the Greater Toronto Area who play an important role in the region’s social safety net.
Volletta Peters
Executive Director, Sistering
Dr. Voletta Peters is a social service leader and researcher with over two decades of experience in the non-profit sector. She utilizes strategic leadership, collaboration, and innovation to champion solutions for populations experiencing homelessness. As Executive Director of Sistering — a multi-service agency that provides low-barrier, practical, and emotional support to women and gender-diverse people — Peters works to ensure clients have access to evidence-informed service and that staff are equipped with the knowledge and tools to deliver them.
Jasmine Ramze Rezaee
Director, Policy & Community Action, Community Food Centres Canada
Jasmine Ramze Rezaee serves as a Director of Policy & Community Action at Community Food Centres Canada, a national organization that works with nonprofits to build and support vibrant and inclusive food-focused community centres in low-income neighbourhoods. Rezaee has been active in the fight for social justice for nearly two decades, leading with the belief that everyone deserves dignity, good food and a fair shot. Her work involves driving systems change, holding governments accountable and ensuring equity is foundational to everything the organization does.
Vanessa Rich
Humanitarian Project Manager, Action Against Hunger Canada
Vanessa Rich has served as a Humanitarian Project Manager at Action Against Hunger since October 2021. A global humanitarian organization that responds to the causes and effects of hunger around the world, Action Against Hunger reaches 21 million people a year over 50 countries.
Nick Saul
CEO, Community Food Centres Canada
Nick Saul is co-founder and President and CEO of Community Food Centres Canada, a national organization that builds and supports vibrant, food-focused community centres in low-income neighbourhoods. These centres are based on the idea that good food is a powerful force for greater health, equity and social change. Nick is a recipient of the prestigious Jane Jacobs Prize, as well as the Queen’s Jubilee Medal and has an honorary doctorate from Ryerson University.
Tharnya Sivanithy
Director, Population Health, Women’s Health in Women’s Hands
Tharnya Sivanithy believes in the transformational power of community engagement and collaboration. Sivanithy is the Director of Population Health at Women’s Health in Women’s Hands Community Health Centre (WHIWH-CHC), which provides culturally safe and responsive primary healthcare to racialized women, trans and non-binary clients from the African, Black, Caribbean, Latin American and South Asian communities. She has worked for over a decade in healthcare and non-profit settings in diverse roles including leadership, community engagement, research, counselling and administration.
Carolyn Stewart
CEO, Feed Ontario
Carolyn Stewart is Chief Executive Officer at Feed Ontario, which unites a network of more than 1,200 food banks and hunger-relief organizations across the province to end hunger and poverty. In addition to building the capacity of provincial food banks, Feed Ontario advocates for evidence-based programs and solutions to make ending hunger and poverty a priority in Ontario.
Valerie Tarasuk
Professor Emeritus, Department of Nutritional Sciences, Temerty Facutly of Medicine, cross-appointed to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto
Dr. Valerie Tarasuk’s primary research focus is household food insecurity. She has led several tri-council research grants to elucidate the scope, nature, and health implications of this problem in Canada, assess the effectiveness of community responses, and determine how public policies and programs impact food insecurity prevalence and severity. For the past decade, she has led PROOF, an interdisciplinary research program designed to identify effective policy approaches and mobilize knowledge to reduce household food insecurity in Canada.
Charmaine Williams
Dean and Professor, Sandra Rotman Chair in Social Work, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto
Dr. Charmaine Williams’ research bridges practice, access and equity issues that affect various populations including racial minority women, LGBTQ individuals, and individuals and families affected by serious and persistent mental illnesses. The majority of her practice experience has been as a clinician in the mental health care system. She has also been involved in organizational change initiatives in the health care sector and has extensive experience developing and delivering professional education in the areas of anti-racism, cultural competence, mental health and addictions.