‘I’m just gonna do it’: How one Toronto teacher is stepping up to fight the city’s deep freeze

Katrina Cain-Griffin shares the story behind launching her fundraiser, CARE4CARE, to help unhoused people in Toronto amid the city's harsh cold snaps.

It was just after 9:30 p.m. on Feb. 7 when Katrina Cain-Griffin crossed a downtown Toronto street with a sandwich and a drawstring backpack in hand.

Inside were socks, gloves, a hat, a toothbrush, Vaseline and other essentials — nine items in total — packed carefully for someone she had never met.

“Sometimes it’s a little nerve wracking, because at the end of the day, it’s a stranger… so I had to put on my community service hat, and build up the guts,” she told CTV News Toronto.

Cain-Griffin along with her two best friends Chantel Faria and Rachelle Ayarde approached a man settling into his blankets on a corner.

“We just said, ‘Hi there. We’re giving out care packages tonight. Would you like one?’,” she said.

He didn’t answer right away, but when he finished adjusting his comforter, he looked up, said thank you, and reached for the bag.

Cain-Griffin, a 25-year-old Toronto master’s student in education, launched Care4Care this winter as the city endured one of its longest and harshest cold snaps in more than a decade.

With some temperatures plunging to –25 C and wind chills reaching -32, she says she felt she couldn’t stand by while many in the city remained unhoused.

Her goal: raise $2,550 to assemble 120 care packages for people on the streets and in warming centres.

Putting an idea into action

The idea had been sitting with her for two years.

“I never took the courage to do it… and then two years later, which brings us to now… I was like, I’m just gonna do it," she said.

Around 1 a.m. on New Year’s Day, she opened a Google Doc.

“It was about 1 a.m., I opened a Google Doc, and I started writing out ideas in terms of what I wanted to create… what’s my North Star?”

Cain-Griffin, who did her undergraduate degree in children, childhood and youth studies and is now completing her Master of Education, teaches high school family studies and history.

“Community work has always just fell to my interest within education as well,” she said. “Right now, I’m a special education teacher,” she added.

She explains she couldn’t encourage her students to make a difference without acting herself.

“I feel like I can’t try to inspire kids to do something, and I haven’t even enacted on my own dreams of wanting to help this world.”

A city in deep freeze

It’s no secret this winter has been brutal and has surely tested Toronto’s most vulnerable residents.

Meteorologists at Environment Canada say the prolonged cold just a few weeks ago, was driven by a “polar vortex” locked over the region and marked the longest run of sub-zero days in more than a decade.

At one point, the City of Toronto opened eight warming centres, adding 615 additional spaces as outreach teams worked to bring people indoors. Many regularly reached full capacity in the overnight hours.

Diana Chan McNally, a community and crisis worker, previously told CTV News Toronto that even with expanded capacity, it wouldn’t be enough to reach the city’s roughly 10,000 unhoused residents.

“It’s really high risk if you are unsheltered to be outside… there’s a risk of dehydration when you’re out in the cold, of hypothermia, frostbite, and so these are really severe things, that worry me most,” Cain-Griffin said.

How she builds each package

Each Care4Care package costs about $20. Through a GoFundMe she accepts donations and posts videos online.

Cain-Griffin shops at Dollarama and orders backpacks in bulk from Amazon.

“In total, there’s about nine items (in the care package),” she said, noting Vaseline stood out as especially practical. “When I was shopping, I seen Vaseline, and I thought that could actually be really multi purposeful… because with the cold weather, I’m thinking your face could crack.”

Originally, she planned to make 100.

“Originally, I had 100 packages and then when I started breaking down price points… it just made more sense to do 120… I was going to have extra left over. And I was like, ‘Well, what am I going to do with these extra backpacks? …Might as well just make more care packages.’”

She has raised just over $1,500 so far toward her $2,550 goal and has about 4,000 followers online, where she documents shopping trips and assembly nights.

“It’s really only me that is going out and buying all the items and creating, organizing it all,” she said. “There’s people that are donating the money as well that are helping support this.”

However, she admits there were still moments of doubt.

“Once I started it, and we weren’t getting any donations, I kind of got scared. I was like, ‘Wait, did I start something too big?’,” she said.

“I had to get out of my head and say, no, trust in the process, you wouldn’t have this idea if it wasn’t meant for you.”

What does success look like?

She hopes to include handwritten care cards in future packages.

“Success for me would be if there was some way that I was able to know that I really helped someone, even just one person… because I can’t see the after effect… I can only hope that they are going to see it when they wake up," she said.

Ultimately, she says, the dollar total matters less than the message.

“It doesn’t matter in terms of if I raise all the money… as long as you can get out as much as you can.”

What she wants recipients to know is simple.

“You’re seen, there are people in this world that care, because I feel like that can go really unnoticed.”

In a statement, the mayor’s office said Mayor Olivia Chow often emphasizes that Toronto is a caring city and described Care4Care as a “concrete example” of that spirit, while noting the city continues their efforts to expand shelter capacity.

For Cain-Griffin, though, that change begins on a street corner — with a quiet offer and a backpack filled with warmth.