From the stove to the street
It’s a day spent cooking that Carey Benvenuti never complains about. In fact, the longer it goes, the better she feels.
Because she never knows which bowl of chili, which plate of pasta, which serving of stew will be the difference-maker for someone who is homeless, or close to it.
Last December, the Niagara Falls mom wanted to do something for the Salvation Army’s Niagara Mobile Outreach Unit, which operates a food truck providing nightly meals and support for people in need. Unable to ride with the truck because of her busy schedule (she’s a mortgage agent who helps out at a restaurant at night), she did the next best thing: Cooked the meals. Three hundred pounds worth.
With plenty of donations and friends helping, she spent a few hours behind the stove at the new Firemen’s Hall at Firemen’s Park. The food “lasted a couple weeks,” she says. “That’s it. That’s all it lasts. And they stretched it.”
For her next batch in February, more donations poured in and more people offered to help. Five hours later, she had whipped up 630 pounds of food. It, too, was soon gone once the truck hit the streets of Niagara.
“It’s remarkable what she can accomplish,” says Niagara Mobile Outreach worker Meghan Meechan, who spends three nights per week in the truck. “Just the volunteer work ... it allows our funds to go somewhere else, to free something up in another program.”
The truck operates six nights a week, visiting Fort Erie and Crystal Beach on Mondays, Welland and Port Colborne on Tuesdays, Beamsville and Grimsby on Wednesdays, St. Catharines and Thorold on Thursdays and Saturdays, and Niagara Falls on Fridays. A schedule of its nightly stops can be found at www.nmop. ca.
For her next cooking marathon, scheduled for April 9, Benvenuti wants to crack 1,000 pounds of food. But to get there will require plenty of donations. Adding to the pressure, Start Me Up Niagara’s Out of the Cold program, offering meals out of six St. Catharines churches, ends for the winter on March 31.
“Our numbers are going to double,” says Meechan, stressing food which normally lasts 14 days could only last a week.
Benvenuti is hoping for not just food donations, but gifts cards for local grocery stores, containers to freeze the food, and volunteers to help out for about six hours.
Stamford Centre Volunteer Firemen’s Association member Don Pierson says community projects like this is what Firemen’s Hall was built for.
“We have to try and support organizations like this. If we can provide the facility, we’re only too anxious to help out.”
On average, the truck serves about 200 people a week in St. Catharines and 80 in Niagara Falls.
They aren’t all homeless, stresses Benvenuti. In some cases, they’re residents who work but live in motels, unable to afford a meal at night.
“For me, I believe homelessness isn’t just one person’s problem, it’s a community problem,” she says. “It’s about people struggling just to put an extra meal on the table.
“(This) is one less meal they have to provide that week. You never know when something like this will be the turnaround point for somebody. A hot meal, an extra pair of socks ... how that’s going to affect their life.”
To donate, email Benvenuti at careybenvenuti@gmail.com.