With the Autumn season upon us and as temperatures start to “Fall” , life at the Ontario Distribution Centre is warming up.

Volunteering is a valuable and rewarding life experience.
It helps one see that one person can positively impact the world and come away feeling good with one small selfless act of volunteering. And volunteering is FUN!!! 

At The Salvation Army (TSA) Ontario Distribution Centre (ODC), we take pride in providing delightful, humbling, and rewarding volunteer experiences for you, your families, friends, and colleagues to get together and support our fellow Canadians in need.

Our busiest time of the year will soon be here – TOY SEASON! We have already started our countdown and planning for Christmas 2025.

In 2024 , Toys were distributed to over 30,000 children from the ODC warehouse. The generosity of community brought Love, Joy and most importantly Dignity to those most in need through the gift of toy donations
We had hundreds volunteers come through the warehouse to help process all those toys as well as keeping up with the priority of getting food distribution into our community service programs.

If your schedule is busy in November and December, How about signing up for a shift in January ? We will have lots of Toys to sort from the 2025 donations!

If you haven’t already signed up for a shift , now is the time!!

Please see our Ontario Distribution Centre volunteer program details below:

Volunteer Shifts: For safety reasons, we accept groups with a maximum size of 15 volunteers per shift.' 

March to October, we have the following volunteer shifts where the volunteers sort food and other items (clothing, houseware, back-to-school supplies, toys, etc.).

  • Morning volunteer shifts: Monday to Friday (9am-12pm)

  • Afternoon volunteer shifts: Monday to Thursday (1pm-2:45pm…our warehouse hours end at 3pm).

 For November and December, we have the following volunteer shifts where the volunteers bag and sort toys and sort food and other items (clothing, houseware, etc.). 

  • Morning volunteer shifts: Monday to Friday (9am-12pm)  

  • Afternoon shifts: Monday to Friday (1pm-4pm) 

 My Impact volunteer portal, volunteer forms and orientation document:

  1. Register: Please create an account/register your name with the MyImpact volunteer portal. Fill out the ‘Availability’ screen, then click ‘Submit application’.  (IMPORTANT: Please follow the registration instructions included in the attached Corp-Salvation Army Food and Other Sorting Group Volunteer Sign-Up Package.)

  2. Sign up: Please sign in under your name with the MyImpact volunteer portal. To select the date(s) and shift(s) that you wish to do, go to the ‘Opportunities’ tab – select ‘Opportunity Calendar’ -- this view presents a list of the shifts per day in the calendar. Select a date, then select the shift and click on the ‘Sign up’ button. You can also go to the ‘Schedule’ tab to see the shifts you have signed up for. You can also click on ‘Remove’ to remove yourself from a shift.

  3. Forms: Please fill out the 2 Volunteer forms and bring them to your first volunteer shift:  1. Volunteer Waiver of Liability and 2. Volunteer Confidentiality Agreement. (Note: Ignore the ‘Group Volunteer Registration’ form – not applicable for the individual.)

  4. Orientation: Please read the Food and Other Sorting information overview prior to the session prior to your first volunteer session.

Location, Parking and Entrance: Salvation Army Ontario Distribution Centre is located at 150 Railside Road, North York, M3A 1A3. (Major intersection: Lawrence Avenue and DVP.) Volunteer parking is in the Korean Community Church parking (1st driveway entrance). Accessibility parking is located near the main entrance (2nd driveway entrance). Please enter by the Salvation Army Main Reception.

To every volunteer, our Happiness Heroes, thank you for being a part of our TSA ODC ‘Behind the Shield’ volunteer program, through your selfless service.