‘Financial crisis’ results in The Gathering Place reducing service
The number of meals being served at The Gathering Place community food centre will be dropping from 14 a week to five.
Dennis Chippa, Executive Director, says starting in September, they’ll be serving one meal a day, Monday through Friday at lunchtime.
He says it’s being done to keep the doors open.
“We’ve gone right back to where we were 21 years ago in order to try and get ourselves through this financial crisis,” he says. “Do I think it's going to be forever? I don’t think so. I think if we can get through the next couple of months, I think we’ll be able to survive and then gradually build up the number of meals.”
Chippa says they’ve been struggling with donations.
“Coming out of the pandemic, I think people were just very cautious with their money,” he says, noting when multiple donations drop from, for example, $200 to $100 it quickly adds up.
“The donations dropped considerably over the past year and a half,” he says. “We struggled with trying to keep doing the services we were doing. It’s not just the meals, it’s 500-600 meals a week in outreach in other parts of the community and the district. We just couldn’t keep up.”
The outreach program stopped last fall.
“Besides the fact the donations were down, the demand was so high,” Chippa says. “We went from maybe averaging 200 meals a day, at breakfast, lunch and supper to well over 300 on a regular basis. It’s not uncommon for us to see meals where we’re serving 130 to 140 people.”
He says Wednesday was a difficult day informing about half a dozen staff that they’re being laid off in two weeks.
In terms of the daily lunchtime meal, Chippa says it will be a bit more substantial than just soup, salad and a sandwich.
“Because we’re going to make use of our food rescue, we’re also going to have volunteers prep stuff or them to take with them, whether its extra sandwiches or snacks, fruit or vegetables from the garden,” he says. “We’re going to do that, so folks still have a little bit extra to take them though until the next day.”
Of note, a spaghetti dinner fundraiser for The Gathering Place takes place this Sunday, Aug. 18 at The Davedi Club.
For tickets call The Gathering Place at 705-474-7687.
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