Cooking, Comradery, & Community: A Recipe for Hope

by | POSTED: May 13, 2019

Bissell Centre’s Community Kitchen, part of the larger Community Space renovation, opened in October 2018 and has since been providing individuals who are experiencing homelessness and newly-housed program participants with the skills and confidence to make healthy and affordable meals.

Bissell Centre’s Jennifer McDonald-Robinson has been running the programming in the kitchen since it opened, and she is excited about the impact the community kitchen is making on the lives of the participants so far.

“For a lot of people who are living in poverty, it can become an all-encompassing thing. Poverty affects their emotional, mental, physical and every part of their well-being,” explains Jennifer. “The folks that access our services at Bissell are people coming from food insecure households and because of that they’re more likely to suffer from emotional, mental and physical health difficulties.”

Jennifer believes that by teaching program participants the skills to create nutritious and delicious food for themselves, it can help break that cycle of poverty and isolation.

“Just because they’re experiencing homelessness doesn’t mean they don’t like good food.”

 

“With most of the food for the community kitchen coming from the food bank, it gives participants an opportunity to learn what they can create from the food bank items,” explains Jennifer. “We can show them different ways to use a can of beans, because eating just a can of beans can be boring. Just because they’re experiencing homelessness doesn’t mean they don’t like good food.”

Jennifer goes on to explain that with poverty, there is also an isolation component. Having participants out and interacting in a positive space really helps ward off social isolation.

One of participant Barry’s favourite things about the community kitchen is getting to meet new people and to not be alone.

“There were two gentlemen who are accessing the program who were a bit withdrawn at first,” explains Jennifer. “But now they meet at the library to look up recipes for the program.”

Jennifer feels that having the opportunity to gather together in the kitchen gives people a boost to their social lives, which can be just as much of a benefit as the culinary skills they walk away with each week.

Barry is particularly excited about what he’s learning.

“It’s teaching me how to cook for myself and how to follow a recipe,” Barry explains.

For many program participants, inter-generational trauma has prevented them from acquiring the kitchen skills they need in their lives.

“They missed out on a lot of those basic teachings that perhaps a lot of other people have because of their trauma,” explains Jennifer. “And if they were taught those skills and experienced homelessness for a period of time, those skills lay dormant and they can forget them.”

“There were things I wasn’t taught… So now I’m learning them and I can cook for people.”

 

“There were things I wasn’t taught,” says participant Rocky. “So now I’m learning them and I can cook for people.”

This is why the simple act of creating a meal or a dish gives participants so much joy.

Bissell will be inviting local chefs to come in and teach program participants various kitchen techniques. Community Kitchen programs run on Mondays and Thursdays, as well as an indigenous walk-in program every 2nd Friday. Here, program participants are learning invaluable kitchen skills and building supportive relationships that will help them move out of poverty and feel empowered while doing so.

Got kitchen skills you’d like to share with our participants? We want to hear from you! Email Jen here.

Guest post by Jacquie DuVal

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