St. Paul's Community Kitchen starts up

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Hunger comes in many forms from gut wrenching cramps from lack of food, to hunger for a voice or touch of a person-any person who cares.

In Tillsonburg we like to think we have no homeless; have no families with hungry children; have no families with violence or abuse or seniors or singles of any age who are extremely lonely. But we do! Virtually every community in Canada has homeless people, you just don’t see it. We have too many abused people and too many lonely people, so what can be done?

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St. Paul's Community Kitchen starts up Back to video

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Laurel Beechey – The World is a Stage

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Well, there are many groups who have been addressing this: Youth for Christ’s Upper Deck; VON Adult Care program; Tillsonburg Helping Hand Food Bank; and the churches who provide meals and a chance to socialize and even get other help. You can help by volunteering or donating to any of these programs.

In helping with community projects by writing about them in this column, I was tickled when Tillsonburg’s St. Paul’s United Church asked me to help share the Community Kitchen is starting up again. The information they gave me deserves to be given directly to you, it is great.

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“Who wants to peel 2.4 tonnes of potatoes? Nobody – but that is the approximate weight of potatoes that we have served at the Community Kitchen in the last eight years.

“At the end of April this year we had completed eight years of serving hot meals though our Community Kitchen at St. Paul’s outreach program. This year, every Saturday starting Oct. 13 at 11:30 a.m., from Thanksgiving through to the end of April, we host a free meal for those in need in our community. The meal usually consists of juice and salad, a meat course, vegetables, potatoes, gravy (depending upon meat course), bread, pickles and dessert.

“On average, our four teams of volunteers serve about 40-60 meals per week. Since the inception of this program in 2010 we have served approximately 12,600 meals! How on earth do you shop for a program like this?

“And let’s also not forget about the dishes. I don’t know how high the stack of pots, pans and dirty dishes from preparing and serving 12,600 meals might be (I shudder to think about it), but every Saturday they are all washed and put away for another use. Our volunteers are terrific.

“Community Kitchen at St. Paul’s is an ecumenical effort, hosted at St. Paul’s but supported throughout our community. The majority of funding comes from the individual donations of members of St. Paul’s. In addition, St. John’s Anglican Church has been a staunch supporter, both financially and in physical effort since inception.There are several other churches which help with this, chief amongst them being the Mennonite United Brethren (Aylmer), as well as members from the Salvation Army and the Alliance Church, and the pub! People help from everywhere. As we plan for our ninth year, we look forward to the same terrific support we have had in the past.

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“We have sufficient funds to get us started for the coming year but will require additional funding as the year progresses. Your continued support as we progress through next year is greatly appreciated and put to very good use serving those in need in our community. By the way, about peeling that 2.4 tonnes of potatoes, we learned that we could save considerable workload and expense by buying our potatoes partially processed in commercial-sized packages. No more peeling!

“If you would like to contribute, either financially or by joining one of our four volunteer teams please contact Laurie Drew at (519) 842-8786 or the Church Office at (519) 688-0011.”

St. Vincent de Paul, through Tillsonburg’s St. Mary’s Catholic Church, on the corner of Rolph and Venison Streets, runs weekly friendship table meals beginning Wednesday, Oct. 10 5-6:30 p.m. in their basement. There is much more however, they have extra breads to take home and a giveaway table known to have everything from books to mittens to pants and heaven know what else to help people who may need something. Over the summer, First Baptist and Faith Presbyterian Churches filled in with lunches to help.

If you require emergency food please call the church at 519-842-3224 ext 4 to reach the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Leave name, phone number and you will be contacted. Don’t be afraid to call and volunteer or donate too!

With either of these programs, it takes many caring friends and neighbours to volunteer to prepare, serve, visit with the people, clean up. If you can’t do that perhaps you would be able to help financially or by calling to see what you could do.

If you are reading this and you are hungry, lonely or in need some other way, do not be shy, nervous or too proud to come. These fine people are doing this because they care FOR YOU. They are empathetic and hurt because you hurt so by coming you can help each other.