It is 10 a.m. on Friday morning at Squamish Helping Hands Society, and the downtown emergency shelter and drop-in centre is already bustling.
A couple is seated at one of the long tables reading. One woman is taking a threadbare blanket from the dryer at the back of the room, while a young man sorts his belongings on the floor next to the stacked lockers by the entrance. The door to the outside opens and closes continuously as more and more arrive, escaping the relentless rain that puddles at their feet on the worn linoleum and can be heard inside drumming on the roof.
The hungry make their way to the kitchen tucked at the far back of the room. Coffee and cookies are set on the counter, and in the 250-square-foot makeshift kitchen, cook Kent Halvorson is making dozens of bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches on a small countertop, its speckled, grey surface barely visible under the lines of bread slices awaiting their insides.
“It is the heart of every home, and it is the heart of our home too,” society executive director Maureen Mackell says of the cramped space reminiscent more of a concession stand set-up than an institution’s kitchen.
Approximately 35,000 meals, more than 14,000 school lunches and 1,250 family hampers are created out of the space each year, according to Mackell.
“Just that little space and you are pumping it out,” she said, adding it is likely even more meals will be distributed in 2016.
“The housing market is so crazy, people are starting to have to choose between food and shelter.”
The society wants a new kitchen for the centre and has asked the district for $15,000 for it.
“It would be amazing to have it brand new spanking all stainless steel, with really well designed shelving,” she said, adding on top of whatever funds come from the district, the society needs materials and someone to design and build the proposed kitchen.
Eventually, the society plans to move Helping Hands to a larger location, but that is years away. In the meantime, a new kitchen could be designed for the current location so that many of its parts could be transferred to a new spot, Mackell said.
A better-designed, up to date kitchen would allow the society to serve more people and save money over the long term.
People drop off fruit or veggies in the summer, for example, Mackell explained. If there were a larger freezer unused fruit could be frozen and made into jam.
The current kitchen leaves nothing to the imagination. Several of the cupboards lack doors, so their contents – pots, pans, plates, and condiments – are on display. There is little room for more than one or two people in the space so productivity is not maximized, according to Mackell. It gets worse around 11 a.m., when 600 lb. of food comes in from the society’s food rescue program, which collects donated unsold groceries from local businesses.
“Because we don’t have room in the actual kitchen, the food is all out here,” she said, pointing to the long tables where several people are seated.
Squamish Lions Club and partners funded the kitchen more than a decade ago, when the centre was only open three days a week and served far fewer people, Mackell said.
Mayor Patricia Heintzman said council is continuing to deliberate on its draft budget this month, but the kitchen upgrade is slated to get some funding.
