#TorontoIsFailingMe: My seniors’ group safeguards the mall

We meet three times a week, on ­Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and do laps through the mall from 7:30 to 8:30. And then we do aerobics. We’ve got more than a hundred members, mostly women but some men as well. It’s a mixed crowd, but the majority are from Caribbean islands—Trinidad, Barbados, St. Lucia. I lead the exercise class once or twice a week. We organize dances, dinners, casino trips. You have to pay a toonie a month, and we use that money for birthday parties and to help each other. If someone gets sick or a family member passes away, the walkers make a donation.

Walking through the mall for so long, I’ve seen the good and the bad. A few years ago, you’d see Malvern in the news all the time—stories about shootings and violence. A barber was killed at the mall in 2012, and there was a shooting in the parking lot last May—but those incidents are rare. Mostly it’s just people making mischief. At lunchtime, it’s full of kids eating at the McDonald’s and hanging out. Occasionally you’ll see a big crowd and someone will say, “Oh, somebody just snatched that woman’s purse.” But I don’t feel ­threatened—I’m here with my friends. I like to feel we’ve made a difference.

—as told to Nicholas Hune-Brown