KANATA - In the 25 years that Jim Van Doorn has been volunteering with
the Kanata Food Cupboard, he said one thing hasn’t changed: community support.
“If there was ever a need for help, we only had to barely
mention it and there was help,” said Van Doorn, one of the four founding
members of the food cupboard.
At a special dinner honouring the volunteers of the Kanata
Food Cupboard held at St. Paul’s
Anglican Church on Feb. 3, Van Doorn recalled how it all began.
It was at a 1985 interchurch council meeting discussing the
social service needs of Kanata
that the food cupboard was born.
“We found people who needed social service couldn’t find it
in Kanata,” said Van Doorn, adding that Kanata wasn’t a part of the city of Ottawa at that time. “Nobody knew where to
get food.”
Following the meeting, he and three other people, including
Bernie Hartlin, decided that Kanata
needed to form its own independent food bank.
“When we started out there was about 10 to 20 families,”
said Hartlin, who was also at the appreciation dinner.
Hartlin remembers meeting in the basement of the old St. Paul’s church, on the
same property that the new building is now built, and where the food cupboard
still runs their operations.
“It was scary in there,” he said of the original cobblestone
building, with its low ceilings and dim lighting. “It was a good place though.”
When St. Paul’s decided to tear down the original building
in 2004 and erect a brand new structure, Van Doorn remembers removing the
original shelves they constructed and installing them in the new building, preserving
a little bit of the food cupboard’s history.
Although the shelves have remained the same, they have
become a lot fuller over the past 25 years as the community has grown.
The Kanata Food Cupboard now serves hundreds of families
throughout the community and is the envy of food cupboards across the city,
said Hartlin.
‘This is one of the best food cupboards in town when it
comes to donations received and the products we give out,” said Hartlin.
This quality of service wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for
the dedication of volunteers such as Van Doorn and Hartlin, said Amanda
Burnside, volunteer coordinator for the food cupboard and organizer of the
appreciation dinner.
In December alone, volunteers logged just under 1,000 hours
of work serving between 200 and 300 families, she said.
“This is just a way to thank them for all their hard work
and support,” said Burnside of the special potluck dinner.
She is planning on organizing a larger event celebrating
their volunteers during National Volunteer Week which runs from April 18 to 24.
Van Doorn said he will be there. After 25 years of
volunteering under his belt, he has no plans of slowing down.
“I’ll do it until I can’t anymore,” he said.
jennifer.burden@metroland.com