The No-Money Rule
Why this network never touches a dollar, on one card.
Beaches–East York Mutual Aid Networks ("BEY Mutual Aid") holds no money. No fund, no float, no jar, no payment app, no donations account. This is a design rule, not a temporary gap.
Why. Three reasons, each sufficient on its own. Trust: a network with no treasury has nothing to fight over, nothing to account for, and nothing to be accused of — every hour and every meal moves in the open. The tax trap: mutual aid groups elsewhere learned the hard way that when a group's money flows through a volunteer's personal payment account, tax and banking rules can treat it as that one person's income — business paperwork landing on a neighbour who was just holding the jar. We put no volunteer there, ever. Election law: two by-elections are underway, and money spent anywhere near a campaign is a regulated edge. The cleanest place to stand is zero: this network spends no money on any candidate, and holds none at all.
Where money goes instead. Three long-standing organizations in and beside the riding, verified active, on their own rails, with their own receipts:
- Community Centre 55 — 97 Main Street
- Eastview Neighbourhood Community Centre — 86 Blake Street
- Salvation Army East Toronto Corps — 107 Cedarvale Avenue
What we move instead. Time — an hour, a ride, a check-in, a repair. Goods — a meal, groceries, a coat, passed directly from the neighbour who has to the neighbour who needs. Information — the directory, and referrals through 211. When a need takes money to meet, we refer it to the organizations built to handle money accountably. That is what the directory is for.