Stolen bow sparks food and blanket drive at Commercial Drive restaurant

(Credit: Facebook/Livia Bakery and Restaurant)

While most of Vancouver was focused on Halloween, Claire Livia Lassam was busy crafting the perfect Christmas decoration for her family business on Commercial Drive.

After spending hours and nearly $300 on chicken wire and fabric, she’d created an Instagrammable, human-sized bow to display outside Livia Bakery and Restaurant—only to have it stolen weeks later.

Running on three hours of sleep and staring down the barrel of another 80-hour week, an emotional Lassam took to Instagram to call out the culprit.

“If you did this because you were drunk and thought it would be funny, please bring it back, I won’t be mad,” she explains in the Dec. 7 video, adding “We’re a really small business, it’s just me and my husband. We’re doing it and it’s hard all the time and this makes me so sad. Please, please bring it back.”

Lassam then received a message from someone who’d seen an unhoused person sleeping under the bow, which was eventually returned soaked, soiled and unsalvageable.

At that point, she says she was no longer angry or sad—at least not for herself. Instead, she was motivated to do something for community members in need.

“I’m a broke business owner but I’m healthy, my family’s healthy. Not everyone can say that,” Lassam admits.

The next week, Livia launched a food and blanket drive in which people leave what they can and take what they need.

“We originally thought we’d team up with a non-profit and donate everything at the end, but we realized people who need help need it right now,” explains Lassam.

Every day since launching the initiative, Lassam says the donation boxes outside the shop fill up with everything from yoga mats to clothing and socks. By the time she arrives in the morning, they’ve been emptied.

Customers have also started decorating Livia with tiny homemade bows of their own.

“That’s what I love about Commercial Drive,” Lassam says. “Vandalism is shocking, but kindness isn’t just the norm—it’s the expectation.”

This isn’t the first time Lassam has seen the community rally behind a local business.

In August 2022, when an electrical fire tore through the mixed-use building where she lived—just blocks from her own shop on Commercial Drive—she launched a fundraiser for the restaurant downstairs, Hanai, whose staff were suddenly out of work.

Within days, 30 donors contributed nearly $2,000.

“A lot of people feel lonely in this city, but if you live on The Drive, you do not,” Lassam says.

When asked how long she intends to keep the food and blanket drive going, she said her plan is to continue well into the new year, knowing the need doesn’t end when the holidays do.

Donations often drop sharply in January, even as demand for food and warm clothing stays high in Vancouver.

Union Gospel Mission, which serves Metro Vancouver’s most vulnerable, recently issued a public appeal for winter coats, citing a critical shortage as cold, wet weather increases health risks for people on the streets.

Meanwhile, the latest Food Banks BC Hunger Report shows food bank usage in the province has surged 79 per cent since 2019, with 113,606 people relying on food banks in March 2025.

That stark data is exactly why Lassam is keeping the drive going.

“The goal of Livia wasn’t just to make really nice bread and pastries and coffee,” she explains. “The space has always meant to be a place for community above all else.”