Community Christmas dinners take on Covid-aware format

It'll be a safety-conscious approach that's taken to community Christmas meals this year in Atlantic Canada.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions that have been put in place across the East Coast as COVID-19 case numbers rise, organizers are making adjustments so meals will be taken to go this year.

The pandemic has impacted each East Coast province differently, but the approach will be largely the same as three separate Christmas dinner events in Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador each serve takeaway dinners for the first time in line with COVID-19 public health guidelines.

But it's an approach each organizer is happy to take if it means they can still help those in need of a meal and some company, even from six feet away, on Christmas Day.

“Christmas, to me, is about giving to others,” says Souris, P.E.I. Christmas dinner organizer Melvin Ford. “People are looking for this, saying they really need help this year. The need is there, and we're going to meet it.”

Ford says he is waiting for final public health directives from the province to firm up whether pickups will be allowed alongside contactless deliveries as meals are handed out in Souris this year.

“The whole purpose of our dinner was to bring people together because we didn't want people sitting home alone. But this year, with COVID-19, we're adapted our approach and are waiting to hear how we will be moving forward,” says Ford.

Hope Cottage in Halifax is a soup kitchen and Christmas Day dinner destination. Executive director Joe Morgan has been supplying meals in takeout containers instead of in-person sittings at every meal since March. The organization will continue this approach up to and throughout the holiday season.

“We were hoping by Christmas we'd be able to sit people down again, but it's going the other way,” he says.

Morgan says the number of turkey takeaway meals will also be up this Christmas since the number of meals served Monday to Friday at the soup kitchen has increased, which he says is due to factors including the pandemic and Halifax's affordable housing crisis.

“We've heard from clients who are living in tents because they've lost their room or apartment,” he says. “There are an awful lot of people on the street right now, and shelters have had to limit numbers due to COVID. This means more people than normal are falling through the cracks.”

Ford says he and his team will serve upwards of 400 people this year — their largest number yet.

“The need is just overwhelming this year,” says Ford.