Serving by cooking in community

We know that eating healthy is important – especially for our growing children – but who has the time or the money to cook elaborate meals anymore?

Ask Beverley Gauntlett that question and she’ll tell you that it is possible to cook delicious meals and, furthermore, do it for about $1.25 per person per meal. The secret is community.

Poring over flyers and planning menus are (l–r) Beverley Gauntlett and program participants Sally and Naylene.

Community Kitchens of the Fraser Valley is a new venture based in Abbotsford and modelled after its parent organization in Calgary, Community Kitchens Program of Calgary. Founded by Marilyn Gunn in 1996, the non-profit program now operates 56 kitchens there.

Participants in the program meet together to plan meals on one day and cook on another. They sit down with store fliers to find out what’s on sale and what will complement the bulk stock the kitchen already has. Fourteen meals are planned using beef, chicken, pork, fish as well as meatless options.

Gauntlett does the shopping, dividing the bill according to how many meals each family will take home with them. Participants then “power cook” for six hours, making huge batches of each meal and dividing them up into containers to take home for the freezer. Gauntlett’s shopping saves time and bulk buying saves money. In the end, everyone wins.

For Gauntlett, Community Kitchens is literally an answer to prayer. This time last year, she was running the MCC Plaza Café, planning meals and helping people train for work in the food industry. She felt it was her dream job because she enjoyed cooking and she loved working with people. So when the Café closed, she was grieving a loss.

As she journalled and prayed, she says, “the idea kept coming back to me that what I wanted to do was feed hungry people.” She began to dream about cooking in community to help people save money and time, and to educate them about eating healthy meals.

She shared her dream with a friend visiting from Alberta who had just read a newspaper article about the same thing happening in Calgary. Gauntlett contacted Gunn and travelled to Calgary to see first-hand how the program worked. A partnership was born.

Community Kitchens of the Fraser Valley has its first kitchen at South Abbotsford MB Church, where Gauntlett is a member. Participants are very enthusiastic and wonderful friendships have already formed. “It’s a hand up,” Gauntlett says, “not a hand out.”

Gauntlett marvels how God has opened doors for her. “It’s an awesome privilege to serve God,” she says.

Her challenge now is to raise funds to firmly establish the program and expand it. (She can be reached at 604-864-2081 or by email.)

—from a release by Angelika Dawson