Bag of Toronto – One bag full of awesome surprises from businesses in a Toronto neighbourhood!

BY SELINA MCCALLUM

The Bag of Toronto is a project that was created by Nick Milum and Derek Liu to help local businesses during the height of the pandemic in 2019. At first, they were known as Bag of Bloor, and only had local businesses in the Bloor area contribute to the bag. Due to its massive success, other businesses from nearby neighbourhoods wanted to get involved too.

“My intention was to allow community members to show their support for businesses during, the year and during a time when it was particularly needed. Our intention was totally just to provide that ability for neighbours and community members to show their support, and to get the treats and the goods that they’re excited about receiving from the local businesses that they know and love in Toronto,” said Milum.

Now, Bag of Toronto partners with over 120 Toronto businesses. They’ve distributed more than $160K to the local economy and donated over $12K in profits to charities in each local neighbourhood.

Bag of Toronto went from working with one neighbourhood, to five in 2020 and now eight in 2022. They give back to a local charity in all of the neighbourhoods.

“We realized that when we were expanding to new neighbourhoods, we wanted to kind of continue with that model of giving back to a charity. But Sistering isn’t as local of an organization to folks who live in Riverside. So, we wanted to choose a hyper local charity, that really does great work in that neighbourhood. And that’s why we’ve kind of expanded with that model. So now there’s a charity for each neighbourhood. So, each bag that’s purchased, some of the profits that are from that bag, go directly to that charity in that particular neighbourhood. So, if you buy a bag of Queen West, you’re also supporting community work that’s being done in Queen West.” said Milum.

Bag of Toronto doesn’t only happen during the Christmas holiday, but they’ve also launched the project for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day as well.

“It’s been really nice to see that the support continues throughout the year. But we’re pretty excited for 2022 holiday season, as we’re turning the corner into that, just because it’s obviously a time when everybody’s thinking about giving. And we think that this is a pretty great gift to give to somebody and also to your community.” said Milum.

People in all neighbourhoods are loving their bag. One review on their website says, “I loved every single thing in that bag! Thank you so much!!! I will now check out these retailers too.” Another says, “The bags are so thoughtfully put together and make wonderful gifts. Delivery always reliable. Love this concept.”

It’s hard for small businesses to sometimes compete with big box stores, so Milum wanted to make it as easy as possible for future customers to sample things from local stores.

“We’ve tried to make this really easy. You can purchase the bag online, you can get the bag delivered straight to your door, you can personalize it a little bit. We’re trying to bring that big box efficiency a little bit to a more local gift.  I think it’s just a great opportunity for businesses to get their products in front of customers that they might not have had otherwise. And just continue to get their name out there.” said Milum.

Milum only moved to Toronto in Fall 2019.

“I am a newcomer to Toronto. And so something that I noticed about the city moving here, and something that was told to me a lot is that each neighbourhood is so distinct and each neighbourhood is really proud of their culture and unique flavor. For Toronto to continue to have that, it’s so important to support these local businesses, so that selling feature, and that business that we’re also proud of in Toronto remains,” said Milum.

The last set of deliveries and pick-ups will be taking place this weekend. Visit bagoftoronto.ca now to order a bag while supporting a local charity in that neighbourhood.