By Aaron Mahoney (@Mahones93 on Twitter)

Interfaith Food Bank unveils new Co-op Community Kitchen

Jan 25, 2019 | 11:08 AM

LETHBRIDGE – The Interfaith Food Bank showed off the fruits of their labour with their newly completed Co-op Community Kitchen on Friday, Jan. 25.

The community kitchen space was part of Phase 2 of the food bank’s latest capital project, Building Possibilities, designed to vastly improve their ability to serve local families in need.

Executive Director Danielle McIntyre says the brand-new kitchen is going to be used just for community programming.

“In addition to our existing programs we have several programs where we’re teaching other agencies how to run their own kitchen programs and teach their participants how they can be food and kitchen safe. The nice thing about this space is that we’ve designed it to be very multi-purpose and it will transition from use to use, whether it’s a cooking class or a fitness class or a community meeting. This space is here for the community to use, especially when it comes to promoting food security in Lethbridge and area,” McIntyre stated.

Second phase renovations include facilities for the commercial kitchen that will serve multiple purposes like hosting volunteer appreciation events, fundraisers, agency meetings, cooking classes, literacy programs and more.

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The need for this expansion is there, as McIntyre says they have a lot of families that don’t have access to proper kitchen facilities.

“We also have a lot of people who just weren’t taught by their parents to provide their own cooking. We have several different agencies, and it’s the agencies that have really inspired us to build this big space because our existing kitchen is wonderful but it’s just not large enough to accommodate a lot of the larger groups that are trying to address specific issues to their client base.

“For example, people with special kidney diets, or people that are intellectually impaired and need to have some extra time to figure out how to work a knife or whatnot. Having the large space will allow us to offer a lot larger group programming.”

Every month, the food bank is serving about 750 families which works out to about 1,900 individuals each month.

“Many of them don’t have the ability to participate in a cooking club or a home economics program at school, so these programs are here for them,” McIntyre said.

While McIntyre didn’t have an exact number of families or individuals that will benefit from the renovations, it will make a big difference.

“I would say that we would easily be able to double the number of people that we’re serving in our existing kitchen because these programs over here will include much larger groups.”

The food bank also discussed plans for Phase 3 of Building Possibilities, which will see the Client Services & Outreach programs expanded. With increased demand for services, they’re in need of more space for clients to access emergency food assistance.

Moving existing client services, which is located at the back of their building at 1103 3rd Ave N, to the street front will provide food bank families with a much larger, more accessible, and more dignified space for accessing emergency food services.

The space available after this phase is completed will almost triple to help individuals and families in need.