Token Gesture

Corey Rockl is the face of Save on Meats’ exceedingly successful breakfast token program. On any given day, she can expect to hand out around 60 sandwiches to downtown eastside residents.

“Just handing someone a token sandwich, for all I know that might be the only thing they’re going to eat for an entire day so when they walk away with a smile and they’re all excited, it feels great, it makes the bad stuff that I go through sometimes worth it,” she said.

While Rockl manages the front lines, senior community coordinator Anna Farrant is working behind the scenes to ensure the token program is reaching those who truly need it.

Like most of Mark Brand’s ideas, the token program came to him at around 3 o’clock one morning and when it was first discussed, it was expected to average around 10 redemptions per day.

“We had no idea what to expect when we launched it,” says Farrant.

“It seemed like a cool idea – we thought maybe we’d get 10-20 redeemed per day, max. We had no idea the response we would get from the community on both sides.

“We’ve had effectively 9129 tokens redeemed since December which is huge. It shows us that the need is there, that the interest is there and that the majority of (tokens) are being redeemed.”

A recent partnership between Save on Meats, Vitala Foods and the BC Egg Marketing Board means Save on Meats will be the recipients of more than 1200 dozen donated eggs over the next 12 months.

“I’m stoked about our partnership. Eggs are a really important, nutritional part of people’s day,” says Brand.

“Conversations are happening in every realm of business about how we make the world a better place which I’m really stoked on.”