A Nanaimo chef is helping tackle food and job insecurity at once in the city with his free lunch program — an initiative that’s also helping build employment skills.
Calven Chow is the kitchen manager for Nanaimo Foodshare, which runs an employment program for young people who prepare and serve free weekly community meals in the city.
The program is offered most Mondays except statutory holidays, at St. Paul’s Anglican Church on Chapel Street — and is one of two free indoor hot-meal programs in the city. The second is a student-focused program at Vancouver Island University, which runs every second Tuesday.
Nanaimo Foodshare’s Homegrown employment program helps offer work experience to youth aged 15-30 who are neurodiverse and who face barriers to employment.
The program helps build skills in the culinary and service industries, with participants learning about front- and back-of-house restaurant operations, food preparation, kitchen safety, and serving skills on Mondays.
The participants are paid minimum wage for the hours they work at the program.
The St. Paul community meal is often accessed by people experiencing homelessness or living in poverty. But Chow said anyone in the neighbourhood is welcome to attend.
The program, funded by Service Canada, feeds an average of 60 to 80 people each week, Chow estimates.
A recent St. Patrick’s Day meal saw 71 people drop in for a special lunch of corned beef hash, spinach salad, and an Irish cream brownie.
Chow said the community meals started during the COVID-19 pandemic “as a way to give back to the local community.”
He would like to see the number of people attending the community meal increase,and hopes to feed 100 people every week.
“My game plan is to feed as many as I can,” he said. “That’s why I joined up with Foodshare — to give back.”
According to the Foodshare website, the initiative served 2,932 lunches between 2022-2023, with the employment program’s participants prepared 37 Monday meals.
Chow said the biggest thing he wants people to know is that the meal is open for people from all walks of life.
“We’ve tried to do our best to erase the stigma that we’re just feeding the homeless or the community at large,” he said. “It is for everyone.”
Chow said that some of the best responses from diners is when they are served meat as part of the free meal, something less common in such food programs.
“Two months ago, I had a burger day,” he recalled, “and it was the first time they had a burger or beef in forever.”
Foodshare also runs the Cultivating Abilities employment program that is geared towards people with disabilities. It offers other food-security programs, such as the Good Food Box, which provides over 600 bags of produce a week for just $15 or less. It also helps cultivate the Five Acres Farm on Park Avenue, and teaches cooking classes.
