**PLEASE NOTE: THERE ARE NO PHYSICAL TICKETS FOR OUR EVENTS. YOU WILL BE ADDED TO THE GUEST LIST. WHEN PURCHASING TICKETS, PLEASE SELECT STORE PICK UP AT CHECKOUT TO AVOID SHIPPING FEES. TICKETS FOR EVENTS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE.**
Please join us for an inspiring evening of conversation and community with Maggie Helwig, award-winning author of Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community.
Tuesday May 5th
6pm to 8pm
The Local Community Food Centre
Stratford, ON
About Maggie Helwig:
Maggie Helwig (she/they) is a white settler in Tkaronto/Toronto, and is the author of fifteen books and chapbooks, including Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community, which was awarded the 2025 Toronto Book Award, and Girls Fall Down (Coach House Books, 2008), which was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and chosen as the One Book Toronto in 2012. Helwig is a long-timesocial justice activist, and also an Anglican priest, and has been the rector of the Church of St. Stephen-in-the-Fields since 2013.
About Encampment:
ONE OF THE GLOBE AND MAIL'S BEST BOOKS OF 2025
WINNER OF THE 2025 TORONTO BOOK AWARD
"Striking, elegant." – Publishers Weekly, ★ STARRED Review
An activist priest provides sanctuary for an encampment of unhoused people in her churchyard
The housing crisis plaguing major urban centres has sent countless people into the streets. In spring 2022, some of them found their way to the yard beside the Anglican church in Toronto’s Kensington Market, where Maggie Helwig is the priest. They pitched tents, formed an encampment, and settled in. Known as an outspoken social justice activist, Helwig has spent the last three years getting to know the residents and fighting tooth and nail to allow them to stay, battling various authorities that want to clear the yard and keep the results of the housing crisis out of sight and out of mind.
Encampment tells the story of Helwig’s life-long activism as preparation for her fight to keep her churchyard open to people needing a home. More importantly, it introduces us to the Artist, to Jeff, and to Robin: their lives, their challenges, their humanity. It confronts our society’s callousness in allowing so many to go unhoused and demands, by bringing their stories to the fore, that we begin to respond with compassion and grace.
An audience Q & A and book signing will follow the discussion between Maggie Helwig and Rina Barone, director of Stratford Arts & Lectures.
There are 2 types of tickets available:
$15 - General Admission - includes light refreshments
$40 - General Admission - includes light refreshments, AND a signed copy of Encampment.
A portion of every ticket sale will be donated to the Local Canadian Food Centre.
We will have copies of Encampment, as well as Maggie Helwig's previous books available for purchase at the event.
Please note: We will be video and audio recording this event, mainly the interview, for a future episode of our Podcast. You might appear on camera as part of our live audience. If you choose not to be recorded please send us an email or let us know before the start of the event. Thank you.
*If you have any accessibility, dietary or other concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to us: stratfordartsandlectures@gmail.com
This event is brought to you by Stratford Arts & Lectures and the Local Community Food Centre.
About the Local CFC:
Vision: A Community where access to good food is central to health and treated as a basic right.
Mission: We build health, belonging and social justice in our communities through the power of food.
Action Plan: We solve food insecurity through programs that cover one or more of the following: access to food, acquisition of food skills, provision of education and community engagement.
To learn more, visit: https://thelocalcfc.org/
