The Magic of Food and Community (Impact Story 2024 - 2025)
This year brought significant change to the food programs team at Mount Pleasant Neighbourhood House. Our long-time chef took on a new opportunity within MPNH, and while their departure was bittersweet within the food programs department, it opened the door for two incredible chefs to join our team, Suzie and Macey, their passion and creativity helped strengthen and expand our food programming. Together, they have introduced new menus that celebrate diverse cultures and seasonal ingredients. Their collaborative spirit has also deepened community connections, making every meal an opportunity to bring people together.
A key highlight of the year was securing a food infrastructure grant from United Way, which helped us put in place the infrastructure needed to support our programs, including freezers, a fridge, a cargo van, and canning and dehydration equipment. Being successful in this project enabled us to increase our ability to accept, store, and distribute foods efficiently, avoid spoilage and increase our offerings of culturally appropriate foods, and nearly doubled our capacity to pick up donations from the Food Bank, among other community partners.
As a result, we were able to serve more people in our community, with the example of our Seniors Lunch program, which has grown substantially, now serving an average of 60 seniors each week, compared to last year with an average of 30 participants weekly.
We couldn’t do all of this work without our community partners and are excited to share that in 2024-2025 we have expanded partnerships, including new collaborations with Sole Food Street Farms, an internationally recognized social enterprise that transforms vacant urban land into street farms. We were able to partner and share their locally grown produce with our community members through our food programs.
With the continued support from partners like the Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Foodrunners, The Fruit Tree Project, and COBS Bread, we continue to address food security in our community, bring people together across generations and cultures to share meals, learn new skills, and support one another.