Dan Kershaw

Dan Kershaw

Executive Director

Furniture Bank

Bio

Dan Kershaw, Executive Director of the Toronto-based Furniture Bank, is a nationally proclaimed proponent of one’s right that all housing should be furnished before in can be a home. His charity collects and redistributes home furnishings to thousands of families in need, gifting beds, chairs, and household goods through their social enterprise work. Under Dan’s leadership, Furniture Bank has re-purposed 400,000 items of furniture heading for landfill into housing for over 21,300 families in the GTA. Not only does this support people emerging from poverty, turning empty housing into furnished homes, diverted materials representing nearly 26,000 tonnes of CO2e. Working with business partners on circular economy corporate pilots, Dan has continuously demonstrated that there are both significant social and environmental impacts associated with reuse and refurbishment charities like Furniture Bank. He is now scaling the Toronto platform to become available nationally, aiming to using their daily learning from Toronto to support a more vibrant and impactful network of independent Canadian furniture banks.