Lethbridge clients walked through the door of the Interfaith Food Bank Friday for the grand opening and ribbon-cutting for a new kitchen.
“We are so proud to show off our second kitchen that will be available for community programming,” executive director Danielle McIntyre said.
The older kitchen in the building only has capacity for 12 people, while the new kitchen can hold up to 100. A space that will benefit that many wasn’t always in the plans.
“Originally we thought we’d lease the space out to another complimentary tenant, but as time went by we realized that was probably more in our best interest the use the entire facility for our mandate.”
It’s a decision that led to the Building Possibilities project, a three-phase initiative to develop vacant building space to facilitate programs to benefit the community. Phase one, access and accessibility, was completed in December 2017, and phase two has just been completed with this new kitchen.
This big project not only required community support; it also required a fair amount of funding.
“The food bank is sustained almost entirely by community donations,” McIntyre said.
“We are eligible for project specific grants, but there is no ongoing funding to keep our operations running, so we couldn’t take money out of our regular donations to come into the building project. We had to fund raise for each piece at a time.”
The food bank received support and funding from various organizations for the new kitchen. It is also continuing to raise funds for phase three, which is the final phase of the Building Possibilities project.