On Thursday a group of Montreal firefighters gathered at the Resilience Montreal day shelter to prepare holiday meals for the city’s most vulnerable.
The initiative, which got its start in 2009, has around 65 firefighters working to dish up hundreds of warm meals in homeless shelters across the city.
Like many other events in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic threatened to break their annual tradition, but they weren’t going to let it stand in the way of giving back to the community.
“The team is comprised of a bunch of different people from different fire stations,” said Station 47 Lieutenant Sean Metcalfe. “We all come together to fulfill the different needs and (provide) meals to people.”
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This year’s brigade will be cooking close to 1,000 hot meals in various shelters around the city.
The tour, which ran from Dec. 10 to Dec. 17, visited Chez Doris women’s shelter, Maison Nazareth, Maison d’Anne, Mission Bon Acceuil and Resilience Montreal.
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“These are, both for dinners and suppers, three-course meals, which will be prepared and served by the firefighters, who, incidentally, are used to cooking in barracks, the reputation of which is beyond doubt,” said members of the brigade Corriveau and Tom Ireland in a press release.
Post-tour, firefighters will be heading back to the same shelters once more to ensure the spaces they used to make the meals are well cleaned.
— With files from Global’s Annabelle Olivier