Building purchase price |
Walls, floors, Plumbing, gas in-floor scale, HVAC |
Electrical & lighting upgrades |
Accessible washroom and front entrance |
| $480,000 | $200,000 | $30,000 | $40,000 |
Shelves, sorting/portioning equipment, furniture, fixtures, signage |
Walk-in fridge & freezer |
Commercial kitchen: appliances & equipment |
Urban garden & learning wall |
| $60,000 | $55,000 | $125,000 | $10,000 |
Capital Campaign
In January, The Sharing Place moved into a larger home at 95/97 Dufferin St. We’ve since rebranded as a Food Centre and created new food skills programs. For over 30 years, we’ve provided emergency food supplies to members of the Orillia area community out of our Food Bank. Programs like ours have never been more necessary, but the help we are currently able to provide is only a stopgap for a much larger issue. Food insecurity is on the rise in our communities. Fresh, healthy food prices have inflated, and household incomes have not grown accordingly.
Food prices need to be affordable. People facing food insecurity need to know how to budget their money to purchase enough healthy food to last until their next paycheck. They also need the skills to prepare a variety of meals using common, inexpensive ingredients. We’ve rebranded as a Food Centre because our Food Bank program alone cannot solve these problems. We are taking major steps to address these challenges, and with your help, we can put the Orillia community on a path to food security.
The Goal
We plan to transform our 12,000 sq. ft facility into a food education centre where people can come to hang out, build stronger community ties, learn about healthy cooking and eating, and share in the joy of food. But we have a lot of improvements to make before we can reach this goal.
In order to create a more welcoming, comfortable space, we need: an accessible entrance and washroom; new furniture, fixtures, and signs; and renovations for lights, plumbing, and more. To continue sharing food at increasing volumes, we need walk-in coolers to store fresh produce. And, to help our members learn to grow, cook, and plan out healthy, inexpensive meals, we need our own urban garden and commercially equipped kitchen. On top of all that, we still have a mortgage on the new facility. The sooner we can pay it off, the more money we can use to buy food and improve our programming instead of making interest payments.
Surplus Food production
We will use the commercial kitchen to cook meals from surplus food. We will portion and freeze the meals for distribution from our food bank and other local food assistance agencies.
Meal Plan
We will work with chefs, dieticians, and nutritionists to plan healthy, low-cost, easy to make meals. Each week of meals will use a selection of common ingredients based on weekly flyers from local grocery stores. Each recipe will use those ingredients in different ways to keep things fresh and show how versatile household staples can be.We will record each lesson so that if a member misses one, they can catch up on our website.
Instructional Videos
We will set up the kitchen to allow for video production. We will record the preparation of each meal to create short, simple instructional videos starring Sharing place members. We will post them on our website for the community to watch and learn to prepare each item.
Kitchen Rental
When we are not using the kitchen for our own programs, we will offer it for rental for local food startups, event hosting, and other groups that require kitchen space.
Home Kitchen Experience
In addition to the commercial kitchen space, our learning area will include eight kitchen modules for members to use, both during lessons and on a reservation basis if they do not have similar equipment at home.
Kitchen Coordinators
Full-time staff will manage the member experience. Coordinators will guide and support members as they develop the skills for a life of healthy eating on a budget. Coordinators will also create dialogues with members and connect them with other community agencies that can help with their specific needs.