The group that helps people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside also needs a little help in order to keep serving up hot coffee, homemade soup and sandwiches every Saturday.
Food on the Corner is now in its 40th year of welcoming people once a week, with the truck setting up in the same place at Main Street and East Cordova Street, since it began in 1983.
The group is Christian ministry supported by local churches in South Delta and runs on a shoestring with volunteers contributing their time and supplies. However, one of the main expenses, the cost of maintaining the catering van, insuring it, and fuelling it, is climbing.
Plus with inflation eating away at paycheques, people are being more careful with their dollars.
“Our donations have fallen off considerably,” said Rick Lewall, with Food on the Corner.
To keep costs down, volunteers also pick up free bread four times a week from Save-on Foods and Thrifty Foods in Tsawwassen.
All told, about 115 volunteers work every week to make the homemade sandwiches and soup to ensure there’s lunch for the 150 to 225 people who show up every week.
Apart from about two and a half months during the height of pandemic, the group hasn’t missed a Saturday since they started in 1983.
Lewall said that he’s seen conditions in the area worsen since the COVID19 pandemic. There are more people who have less money.
“The problem in downtown Vancouver has definitely got considerably worse and the need is considerably more,” he said. That means Food on the Corner has to supply more sandwiches and soup, he added.
Moving people from encampments in parks have seen them instead set up tents on sidewalks and in back alleys, Lewall said. Today’s drugs are also more addictive compared to decades ago, he added.
For the most part, those on the street are people who’ve dropped out of society for one reason or another.
“Nobody ever chose that lifestyle when they were born. Nobody did,” said Lewall.
Anyone who wants to donate, can go to the website foodonthecorner.ca and then click on the donate button at the top of the page.
Cheques made out to Food on the Corner Society also can be mailed to 5170 Wallace Ave., Delta, V4M 1A1.
