Souls Harbour serves up tradition at Easter dinner
Volunteers and food donations help mission offer holiday meal to 600 people
The holidays to many people include gathering together with loved ones to eat a big meal.
However, that isn’t always an option.
On Friday some of Regina’s lower income residents were able to take part in a holiday tradition at Souls Harbour Rescue Mission’s Annual Easter Dinner.
“People are just so grateful to have the opportunity to share in community and to have a warm traditional and nutritional holiday meal that they can share with their families. It’s something about it, just really blesses a person,” said Katrina Robinson, director of development at Souls Harbour.
Last year Souls Harbour fed 450 people at the dinner. This year the shelter prepared food for at least 600 people — making a meal of ham, potatoes, salad and cake with coffee and tea. Almost all of the food was donated with Souls Harbour only having to purchase a few odds and ends.
This meal is one of the many services Souls Harbour offers. From Monday to Friday the shelter serves supper to an average 200 people a night.
With the PST being raised to 6 per cent in the provincial budget and children’s clothes now being taxed, money could become tighter for low income families. Robinson said Souls Harbour isn’t sure yet how this will affect the number of people using their services.
“We’ll be here for anybody who (needs our) services for a time. We’ve been here for the past 27 years and we’ll continue to do that into the future regardless of economic climate,” she said.
Friday’s holiday meal was made possible by the work of volunteers. Robinson said it took a whole week of preparation and 75 volunteers to pull it off.
Katie Johnson has become a regular volunteer at Souls Harbour over the last few months while she attended school — she first volunteered at the shelter through her school.
“It was something that really touched my heart to see that we could take care of people, that we could feed them and that just a simple meal provided so much for someone,” she said.
Johnson then started volunteering regularly to help make and serve meals during the week. Friday marked the end of her volunteering time at Souls Harbour and her first holiday meal there.
“Part of a holiday is to have a really good meal with family, with community, with all of that and the fact that we get to do this and create that for them, even though they might not be able to themselves, I think is a real blessing to me,” she said.
Johnson has enjoyed her time at Souls Harbour and through it all was always amazed at how grateful the guests using the shelter were to her.
“They can see that you’re working hard and sometimes it’s stressful but they are still so grateful and they’re even helpful in it,” she said. “They’re all really sweet people. They are very kind, very giving of themselves and it makes it easy to serve them because of that.”