Squash Soup, Social Benefit, Homemade Bread, Entrepreneurship, Curry Chicken and Collaboration.
By the Lowertown Community Resource Centre
Want a recipe for innovation, collaboration and entrepreneurial spirit in the community benefit sector?How is this for an ingredient list?
- Multiple organizations working together to try something new…CHECK
- Transforming a sparingly used communal room and attached commercial kitchen…CHECK
- Providing youth with developmental and / or social challenges an opportunity to develop skills for meaningful employment…CHECK
- Increasing access to healthy and affordable food…CHECK
- Helping reduce social isolation for low income residents…CHECK
Since March, the Mac Manor Bistro has been open three days a week to residents of 123 Augusta St. (otherwise known as MacDonald Manor), an Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) building in Lowertown. Clients can order a healthy lunch for $2 or bring home one litre of soup for $1. “It’s an excellent program…a lot of people are benefiting”, says Bob Mather, a resident of the building.
So how does it all work? The Bistro is the product of more than two years of discussions among five partner organizations. The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board refers students who have struggled to complete high school due to developmental disabilities or social / behavioural challenges to Algonquin College’s Kitchen Steward program. This program teaches safe food handling, basic food preparation, kitchen sanitation and table service.
Rather than learning at the College itself, students get hands-on training in a real but less stressful restaurant environment. Just ask Mitchell, one of the Algonquin students: “Here, we’re interacting with real people, real clients, real issues and [learning] how to deal with that. It’s lessened my nervousness around talking to people. We’re always working on different dishes. Some of the dishes have been difficult to make but we’ve learned. We make everything, even the bread!”
Algonquin and Ottawa Community Housing (OCH) invested to upgrade the kitchen space and brighten the common room on the top floor. Social workers and support staff from OCH, Options Bytown and the Lowertown Community Resource Centre are present to support residents, to encourage them to come and to ensure that the program meets community needs. “Coming up here, it’s friendly, it’s kind. They make you feel welcome and I like to support the students.” says another resident, Diane Meldrum. “I don’t like eating alone…here you’ve got company and the food is marvelous! It’s a nice place to be.”
Algonquin student, Beulah, also likes seeing people and getting to know them. “In the future, I’d like to open my own business. This gives me experience”, she adds.
For now, the Bistro is only available to residents of the building. However, the partners are exploring ways of adding to the project and finding ways for it to generate revenue for reinvestment in the community. At the Lowertown Community Resource Centre, we are proud to be involved in such a partnership and see it as a model that could be replicated in many other buildings across Ottawa.