{"id":1843,"date":"2024-10-28T19:41:57","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T19:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salvationarmy.ca\/pranorth\/cooking-up-food-security-in-manitoba-with-collective-kitchens\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T10:58:41","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T10:58:41","slug":"cooking-up-food-security-in-manitoba-with-collective-kitchens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salvationarmy.ca\/pranorth\/2024\/10\/cooking-up-food-security-in-manitoba-with-collective-kitchens\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooking Up Food Security in Manitoba with Collective Kitchens"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the Portage la Prairie Salvation Army<\/a> in Manitoba, community members meet monthly to big batch cook some of their favourite recipes and share them amongst a group. The meals are subsidized with items from the food bank and monetary donations and only cost participants $5 per family member. Everyone goes home with roughly five generously portioned freezer-friendly meals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe group decides when they’re going to cook, what they’re going to cook, and if or when they\u2019re going to take time off. They make all those decisions as a group,\u201d explains Major Brenda Hammond, corps officer in Portage la Prairie.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Collective Kitchens program has been running in Portage for two years, and four groups cook every month. Participants are often referred from the food bank or partner organizations such as schools, senior programs, the Family Resource Center, or the Portage Learning and Literacy Centre. Program facilitators are either volunteers or are contracted out by partner organizations to work with specific groups.<\/p>\n

In preparation for cook days, each group meets to discuss their families’ preferences or restrictions and what items the food bank has in abundance. They go through flyers to see what’s on sale and plan that month’s menu. Additional groceries are purchased with an allotted monthly budget of $80, and any cash left over is rolled into the next month\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a whole different way of thinking about groceries that we teach in the kitchen here. You get your grocery store flyers, you see what’s on sale, and you look in your cupboard and see what you have, and then decide what you’re going to cook,\u201d says Major Hammond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this program,\u201d says Hetal Ben Vyas, a member of the newcomer cooking group. She and her family have only been in Canada for about a year, and despite her impressive educational background, she and her husband are still adjusting to life in a new country and can only work part-time while caring for their family.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to help. I like to interact with others, and it\u2019s been great to have this activity to connect and learn about new cultures,\u201d she says. Since joining the Collective Kitchens program, Hetal has also begun volunteering with The Salvation Army.<\/p>\n

The newcomer group has only been cooking together for a short time, and when they started, they had to use translation apps on their phones to understand the facilitator and communicate with one another. This group is made up of women from India, Syria and Ukraine who all make and share traditional dishes from their respective cultures.<\/p>\n

Major Hammond was first introduced to the idea of Collective Kitchens before she was an officer \u2013 She read about it in the late 1980s and began volunteering at a Salvation Army corps in Cobourg, Ontario. The volunteer position evolved into a paid position and eventually led to Major Hammond joining The Salvation Army in an official capacity.<\/p>\n

When she first came to Portage eight years ago, Major Hammond noticed that from time to time, the food bank would have a wealth of seasonal produce thanks to nearby agricultural producers who donated. However, often clients would not know how to use or prepare items like squash, zucchini, tomatoes or cucumbers. She realized that a program like Collective Kitchens would not only help use up the items they had a lot of but also teach people how to prepare and use them in recipes and stretch their grocery budgets a little further.\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople back in Cobourg from the original group that I stayed in touch with have said, \u2018I still grocery shop now exactly like that program taught me.\u2019 That’s a lasting impression – A sense that you are really building community,\u201d she says. This is underscored when participants transition into facilitators, learning leadership skills along the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey also become a support group in a profound way,\u201d Major Hammond says. \u201cA lot of families now live without the support of friends or family.\u00a0 If you have never had support, you don’t know how much better your life can be with support.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Major Hammond, introducing the program that started her involvement with The Salvation Army as she prepares for retirement has created a full circle moment.<\/p>\n

Related: Portage Salvation Army Feeds 68 Families this Thanksgiving<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Portage la Prairie Salvation Army in Manitoba, community members meet monthly to big batch cook some of their favourite recipes and share them amongst a group. The meals are subsidized with items from the food bank and monetary donations and only cost participants $5 per family member. Everyone goes home with roughly five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[105,195,85,196,49,197,97],"location":[],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-community","tag-cooking","tag-food-bank","tag-food-security","tag-manitoba","tag-portage","tag-portage-la-prairie"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCooking Up Food Security in Manitoba with Collective Kitchens - Prairies and Northern Territories<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salvationarmy.ca\/pranorth\/2024\/10\/cooking-up-food-security-in-manitoba-with-collective-kitchens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cooking Up Food Security in Manitoba with Collective Kitchens - Prairies and Northern Territories\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"At the Portage la Prairie Salvation Army in Manitoba, community members meet monthly to big batch cook some of their favourite recipes and share them amongst a group. 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