13/05/2016
EVENT ALERT!
What: Breaking Up for the Summer – Community Feast and Clothing Share
Where: Allan Gardens – in front of the conservatory main entrance
When: Sunday, May 15, Noon
Who: Sikh and Indigenous community initiative to feed and clothe the people. Everyone is welcome to eat, to take what they need, or eat and drop off what they no longer need, or just eat and socialize.
Why: Seva Kitchen is taking a break to plan coming back doubling the capacity to feed the people. This is a celebration of an initiative that started off as a single feast and ended up becoming a weekly event that fed over 10,000 hot meals over the winter.
Background:
At the end of November, 2015 a group of Sikhs decided to celebrate their good fortune by practicing the Sikh tenet of Seva or Selfless Service by feeding the growing population of homeless in Toronto. They decided to check to see who the most vulnerable people in the city were. They were saddened to discover that Indigenous people were most at risk to be on the streets, received the least amount of support from agencies that did not want to or were not prepared to handle the generational trauma from colonization and the residential school abuses. Many of the people most at risk and in need were either turned away from city shelters or did not have enough faith in them to enter them in the first place.
The Sikh group reached out to a group of First Nations people who had been reaching out to the street people ad hoc and making sure that they had food, warm clothing, and access to care. Sometimes providing a listening ear was enough. The Sikhs asked where and how they could best be of assistance. It was suggested that Allan Gardens was the ideal location; there were many shelters in the area and there was a warm space that many were able to access during the day when they needed to use a washroom.
The Sikh’s Seva Kitchen would handle feeding the people hot basmati rice cooked fresh with peas and fragrant cumin, chickpea curry, samosas, pakoras and water and masala chai to wash it down. The food would be catered from good restaurants and prepared fresh with the best possible ingredients. Everyone coming through the park and conservatory would be offered hospitality. They could stay and chat over tea or enjoy a delicious meal. The Indigenous crew would hand out the warm clothing, toiletries and bedding that people brought by for The Clothing Share. The two communities would serve side by side, the allies taking the lead from the First Nations in assuring that the project was respectful and all could benefit from the collaboration. The ad hoc meeting of the two groups, both taking direction from the women of the communities, started calling itself Kwes and Kaurs – Kwe being the Ojibway word for ‘woman’ and Kaur being the middle name of all Sikh women.
The initiative grew over the winter. Any food left over from Allan Gardens would go to one of the area shelters. Seva Kitchen gave hundreds of meals to Seaton House, Margaret’s Drop In, The Grange Out of the Cold program, CRC and The Good Shepherd. The Clothing Share took in and gave out hundreds of garbage bags of clothing over the winter while Seva Kitchen served up 400+ delicious meals every single Sunday, reaching the 10,000 meals served milestone at the beginning of May. Seva Kitchen is taking a summer break to come back bigger and better with plans to add a second satellite site in West End Parkdale in the fall, bringing the total number of weekly meals served to 800. There are plans to have this run all year.
This final Sunday of the feast will see Seva Kitchen providing food for over 1000 people. In addition to the usual Punjabi food, there will also be hot dogs and hamburgers for all.
The success of this venture is evident in the warmth of the people that come back week after week. Neighbourhood condo residents eating with people who call the park home. There is no “us” feeding “them”…this is a group eating together and creating mutual respect and understanding in the community through eating and drinking together.
We invite the media to come and join us for food and a concert in the park by local Indigenous talent and help share the word of the good things that happen when communities come together.
Contact: Mita Hans 416-707-3674
Kanwar Saini 416-770-3648
Facebook event page:
https://www.facebook.com/KwesandKaurs/
