Saskatoon downtown community kitchen to provide evening meals to those in need
- Fraser Needham | December 18, 2014
The Cameco Community Kitchen officially opened Monday December 15 at the Saskatoon Lighthouse.
The kitchen will provide evening meals to those in need living in the downtown core on Mondays and Fridays.
Cameco has kicked in funding for kitchen upgrades and will provide employee volunteers to help serve meals.
Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel says the community kitchen won’t solve all existing problems but they hope it will help bridge the gap.
“We know the demand unfortunately outstrips the supply, as is often the case,” he says. “So this won’t solve all of the issues but it will help.”
Lighthouse spokesperson DeeAnn Mercier says skyrocketing rents in the city means more and more people have little money left over for food.
“Money becomes very tight for folks and there’s just no enough to go around,” she says. “We see that the Friendship Inn does great work but they’re not doing suppers. So, we wanted to be able to do an evening meal program here, just twice a week, to serve meals to the wider community.”
Harry McLeod, who is originally from Stanley Mission, uses the services of the Lighthouse and he says an accessible supper program is greatly needed in the community.
“The main thing is the supper for the people that can’t make it into those places, there’s some people that are banned from the Friendship Inn and the Salvation Army,” he says.
The kitchen will also be used to teach cooking classes and life skills.
The Saskatoon Lighthouse provides emergency shelter, supported living and affordable housing for those in need in the city’s downtown core.
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