The Mustard Seed Street Church has been essential in fighting hunger and restoring faith to a large portion of people living in greater Victoria since 1975. Our operations are nearly 100 percent community funded; these include Vancouver Island’s largest Food Bank, a Family Center, Hospitality programs, and addictions recovery at Hope Farm Healing Centre as well as more traditional Church services.

The Mustard Seed Street Church supports over 45,000 individuals per month, with the support of more than 50 volunteers everyday. With your help, lives are transformed on a daily basis!

Rotary works hard to make a difference. The Starfish Pack Program started as a pilot project with 6 backpacks as a response to an Abbotsford teacher’s cry for help. She was feeding many of her Kindergarten students who were coming to school on Monday hungry. The hunger was affecting their moods and their ability to focus in class. This was not just an Abbotsford problem.

Many students across the province rely on school breakfast and lunch programs to fill their tummy’s on school days. When it comes to the weekend, they don’t have the food they need. Starfish Pack was designed to help change that. Starfish provides backpacks with 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, and snacks to hungry students each weekend of the school year.

Teachers have reported improvements in children’s reading skills, math skills, ability to focus and to do partner work. Starfish has now expanded to over 20 cities now including Victoria with the help of the Harbourside Rotary Club and Fairway Markets. The program is helping make sure children across Greater Victoria don’t have to worry about weekend hunger. 

Island Good is a place brand to help shoppers identify local products (Vancouver Island & Gulf islands). Look for the Island Good logo on products and in stores across Vancouver Island.

Vancouver Islanders believe in local, want to shop local, source local, and eat locally sourced food. It started with local Vancouver Island food products displayed with the Island Good brand on grocery shelves. Now all Vancouver Island products are easier to identify by looking for the colourful Island Good messaging. As Islanders make more Island Good choices in their shopping, we think increased demand will lead to increased production, more jobs and more production capacity as shopping dollars stay on Vancouver Island to support Island producers and retailers.

Look for the Island Good tags on products and in retail stores. Enjoy local food and support our local economy. We’ll all be good. Island Good!

Think Local First is a non-profit society directed by a group of enthusiastic volunteers who are all small business owners or representatives in Greater Victoria. Our goal is to encourage people to support local businesses so we can keep Greater Victoria a vibrant, sustainable community and make it a better place to live!

Independent businesses contribute to creating healthy and dynamic communities. Profits don’t get sent to a head office somewhere else; they stay and get spent here. For every 10% of dollars spent at locally-owned shops and services, 25% more money stays in the Victoria economy. This change in spending is known as the 10% shift movement, which we at TLF work tirelessly to promote. If we change our shopping behavior just that much, the results are proven. One recent study commissioned by the Canadian Union of Public Employees suggests that if all of BC made the 10% shift, we would actually create 31,000 more jobs and infuse $940 million in wages into the province’s economy.

The local businesses in our city also play a huge role in making Victoria a place folks want to visit. Victoria would not draw as many visitors without these unique local businesses.

With about 1,400 members, the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce is one of the five largest chambers in the Province. Our membership reflects the diversity of the business community. We represent the interests of small, medium and large businesses across all sectors as well as members from the not-for-profit sector. Reflective of the character of businesses in Greater Victoria, approximately 80% of our membership is made up of small businesses with 25 employees or less.

A willingness to try new things and adapt as needed ensures the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce remains a modern organization. We embrace contemporary methods for getting results and are consistently a leading organization in our community. This willingness to change with the times is something we've done along with our members for almost 160 years. We also strive to represent all voices in our community, going the extra mile to build relationships that bring people from typically marginalized communities into the wider conversation.

And our collective voice makes a difference. Over the decades, Chamber members have pushed for investment or policies that led to many of the icons and landmarks we continue to enjoy across the region: The Empress, shipbuilding facilities, ferry service to the mainland and to Washington State, the airport, the first parking garage in the city, E&N rail and the University of Victoria are a few of our accomplishments.

The Times Colonist Christmas Fund provides financial support for community

organizations on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Much of the money is

used to buy food, but it can also be used to buy toys or for other needs.

The effort was started by the Daily Colonist in 1956 as the 500 Fund. In

subsequent years, its name was changed to Thousand Fund, then Christmas Fund.

Our goal is to raise more than $1 million a year to provide food and other aid to

communities on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.



We accept donations throughout the year, and our fundraising campaign timeline

is typically from November to January each year.