On December 13th Food Mesh got together to cook up Christmas dinners. They prepared all the veggies, cooked and cut up turkeys, and then put them in the freezer for this week. Tonight is the last day that these meals will go out at 7pm from the Kindersley Christian Fellowship Church. One of the leaders of program Barbe Dunn said "we cooked up 170 individual dinners, and now we're adding the buns and putting them together with desserts and other little goodies like cranberries and candy canes."
Food Mesh started a year ago and they knew the need would be equally as great this Christmas as it was last year. Dunn acknowledges the positive impact on the community, and points to an unforgettable moment, "there was one mom that has seven kids. She's a single mom, so I think it was huge for her."
Just like any small town in West Central Saskatchewan it seems like it's the same people volunteering. Better Together was on hand to help with the Christmas meals, but more and more people are coming out as the word and the heart warming stories spread.
The local hutterite colonies have been generously donating vegetables. A large meat donation came in said Dunn, "Robin Walde and the Shae's donated a whole side of beef. I think in total they donated 2000 lbs of food. We got a van load of food from Heidi Marchant and the schools who put on a program. So many people from the community have brought in their garden haul. They brought buckets of food."
People who come to Food Mesh in need are grateful. So grateful in fact, that they end up giving back. Dunn tells the story of a man who came in three weeks ago in need of help. "One of our most reliable volunteers was here looking for food at one time. With a little help, he ended up getting a full time job. He got his vehicle running. He's a single dad and he brings his kids. They play with other kids and he's made a complete transformation in that short time. He has a whole support group now."
Great stories of human triumph continue.
"We have a few Ukrainian families and I used to use an app to translate everything I was saying. Then they'd use the app to talk back to me. Just a lot of back and forth for any simple conversation. Now we have a gentleman who speaks fluent Ukrainian and he's coming all the time to help with the language barrier. He's there three nights a week."
She had one final message "Merry Christmas everybody, and thank you to everybody that's touched our community through the "Loaves and Fishes" Food Mesh program. It's massive, and we are so grateful."
Thu, Apr 25, 9:30 AM
