In the spring of 2012, the east Danforth commercial vacancy rate was 17 per cent and nearly one in five stores lay empty. It was a quiet section of an otherwise bustling city neighbourhood.

When the image of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on a beach in Turkey, was published, it hit Elizabeth Dove hard. “There was a burning local need to help, and (there were) people who wanted to do something, but had no idea where to start,” she said. “We have the space; we have the ability and frankly there is a moral imperative.”