(On September 15, 2026, the Rotary Club of Ottawa-Stittsville learned from Travis Blackmore how Lionhearts of Stittsville began as a charitable food distribution agency. Photos: Stittsville Central)
Travis Blackmore was the guest speaker at the September 15th Rotary Club of Ottawa-Stittsville evening meeting held at Hazeldean Gardens. Travis shared his story of the ‘ad’venture he had entered. It was a long journey from his days as a rock and roll drummer to the role as Founder and Executive Director of Lionhearts.
He has always been passionate about food recovery and had a friend who worked at the local Kingston Costco who lined up a meeting with the manager in 2014. Travis wanted to arrange food recovery for the food that Costco was tossing out daily.
The catch, Travis would have to be at Costco by 6:00am every day for the pick-up. The next morning he arrived and discovered 800 pounds of strawberries awaiting him. His Dad managed a church so he was able to take the four carloads of strawberries there. Travis didn’t realize “the puddle that I had stepped in”.
He started phoning organizations to take the strawberries and soon realized that these organizations did not have the capability or capacity of handling large quantities of food every day. With the assistance of the church ladies all of the berries were washed, cleaned and ready to be donated. This was also the time that the door opened for Travis to begin a charitable food distribution agency.
In the Ottawa distribution centre, he received a call that ‘Amazon had 27,000 tubes of potato chips’. Travis thought these were “palettes and palettes of hope!” for Ottawa. The chips were shared between the Ottawa and London locations where 90 agencies accepted the donation.
In London, the Rotary Club was the first organization to reach out to Lionhearts upon opening to discover how they could help through volunteering. Here in Stittsville, the Rotary members are active and regular volunteers at the Iber Road location.
In Ottawa alone last year, $2 million worth of goods passed through Lionhearts. Travis stated, “Of the 100% of food produced in Canada and 40% produced beyond our border, 10% has been saved by Lionhearts ensuring that ‘no-one would starve’.”
Travis shared credit for all who help with the organization. “I have a passionate team of 600+ volunteers across all of the Lionhearts locations. We have 21 full-time employees, with Ottawa having two.”
Lionhearts is sustained through fundraising, donations received at events, monthly grants and the annual ‘Coldest Night of the Year’ walk-a-thon. “We also have 1,000 monthly donors who are greatly appreciated.”
They also have generous partners such as Amazon, Cobs Bread, Costco, Starbucks, Tulips & Maple, Burnbrae Farms Foundation, Little Caesars, and Findlay Foods in Kingston. More recently, they partnered with Coca-Cola.
The people of Ottawa are fortunate that Travis has a passion for food recovery and put into action a plan for Lionhearts facilities in Kingston, followed by Stittsville, then London, serving so many in these communities.
Lionhearts, named for Aslan – the lion in The Chronicles of Narnia, arrived in Stittsville in 2023 and are located at 119 Iber Road. You can follow Lionhearts on Facebook or learn more about the organization on their website.
The Rotary Club of Ottawa-Stittsville meet regularly and the third Tuesday of each month offers an opportunity to residents to join them at Hazeldean Gardens to hear their guest speakers. The meeting begins at 7:00pm and is available to all in-person or hybrid.
