Leafs’ forward Mitch Marner provides hundreds of Christmas meals to GTA families

Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner hasn’t played a game since December 1st, having been sidelined with a shoulder injury after colliding with teammate Jake Muzzin in practice.

While he is anticipated to return to the lineup in the next few weeks, he has been making a big play away from the game. On Christmas Eve his foundation, The Marner Assist Foundation, helped serve hundreds of meals to families in the GTA.

“It’s been a tough couple of years here for everyone, especially those facing food insecurities,” Marner told CityNews. “We have been trying to help people out throughout the holidays, throughout the year, just getting them the food and now doing the gifts. We are just trying to get everyone to enjoy their time and not worry about all the outside stuff.”

Marner’s foundation hosted its first ‘Give a Gift’ campaign where they collected toys and donations for families in need. The idea came about at the last minute and they quickly raised over $30,000 worth of donations and gifts in just over a week.

“It’s such a special time of the year and if you are willing to give a gift, this is the time of year to do it. These last two years have been hard on a lot of people and their lives have changed, people have been in unfortunate situations, and that’s why for us it was really important to do this this year.”

“We wanted to find another way to give back. We are just trying to encourage people that if you have the chance and are able to, don’t be afraid to try and start your own toy drive and try and do something out of the ordinary and try and make a difference in someone’s life.”

Marner is celebrating his first Christmas as a fiancé. He popped the question to his long-time girlfriend Stephanie who has been helping with the foundation’s work.

“If people missed the Give-A-Gift campaign they can still donate through Second Harvest and through the Marner Assist Foundations website,” Stephanie LaChance told CityNews. “We’re still going to provide families with meals throughout the winter. So if people missed the deadline, there’s still that option to help give families meals.”

Due to the surge in COVID-19 cases with the new Omicron variant, the NHL has limited player interactions in public, so Marner wasn’t able to help sort the toys. His family, who are at almost all of the foundation events, stepped in.

“Both my parents have really helped out a lot and my brother as well. Just obviously with the NHL season and stuff like that happening, it’s hard for me to get to these events and be in public and doing that with all the restrictions. So they’ve done a great job just doing it for me, being the face of it and helping so many in need out.”

Aside from the Christmas Eve meals, over the last 20 months Marner’s foundation has provided hundreds of meals for frontline workers and for those facing food insecurities.

“When the pandemic started we saw so many people in our community with food insecurities, kids that lost their breakfast and school programs. So we are doing what we can to try and help these families out who are just trying to support their own families during these trying times,” said Natasha Borota, President, It Factor Ltd.

One of the partners that helped with his foundation was Limitless Tire whose donation of $20,000 helped feed 600 families around their four locations in Toronto.

“We’re still taking donations through the winter because that’s when a lot of food insecurities happen and the kids could potentially not be in school again. So we just want to make sure that we’re continuously filtering some funds with our partners. All the money we get in for this next month will all go into feeding families and just giving to organizations shelters that need things through the holidays,” added Borota.

To read more about the foundation go to MarnersAssistFoundation.com