The line that became a community.

When Linda arrived from Cameroon in 2023, pregnant with her son Nathan, she couldn’t believe a place would hand out food and ask for nothing in return. She came back every Tuesday, and the 9 am line slowly became a community; neighbours trading job leads and small worries, held together by the need that brought them there.

Ask someone still in that line what this place means, and you get it plain:

“Without this place, most people wouldn’t survive. We need them — big time.”

For the first two years of Nathan’s life, every diaper came from Regeneration. She expected to find food and baby supplies. Instead, she found a community that made room for her — one where, as she puts it, “No one feels downgraded because they came to ask for food.”

That feeling stuck with Linda, so much so that when the chance came to give back, she took it. Through the Catholic Women’s League at St. Leonard’s Parish in Brampton, Linda came to volunteer, walking in for the first time through the back door: past the packing tables, the cleaning crew, and the staff who’d once served her, now part of the support she’d relied on herself.