St. Jude's is pleased to be able to provide vulnerable neighbours with nutritious meals through a number of programs, including The Pantry Program and Dinner at Your Door.
If you wish to volunteer for The Pantry Program or learn more about it, please feel free to reach out to Len Favreau, our Pantry Program Coordinator at stjudespantry@gmail.com.
The Pantry Program uses the newly renovated kitchen at St. Jude's, preparing 140 to 200 meals. The meals are packaged into two-serving containers. Half of the meals are frozen and then delivered to St. Mathew’s House in Hamilton for distribution. The other half of the prepared meals are taken by volunteers to the Links2Care office in Oakville where they are frozen for later delivery.
Volunteer teams choose the meals they want to prepare from within a rotation of items, including shepherd’s pie, chili, sausage, and lentil soup, roast pork with sweet potatoes and corn.
St. Jude’s Pantry Program is also proud to partner with Adult’s in Motion (AIM) Oakville and Hamilton whose clients, under the supervision of their leaders and volunteers, prepare meals for the Pantry Program twice a month. AIM provides services for adults with disabilities and participates in activities which promote community leadership, inclusion and volunteerism, which serve to build the personal skills of AIM clients. Once a month, during the school year, students in the culinary program at White Oaks Secondary School (WOSS) prepare and freeze meals under the supervision of Jon Hogan.
Links2Care is a social service agency whose case managers supply the frozen meals to their clients who are homeless, or homebound and unable to cook for themselves.
Each Thursday our volunteers provide a “Dinner at Your Door” program that supplies hot freshly prepared meals to Links2Care clients and to other persons experiencing food insecurity in Oakville. The meals are prepared by our partner agency, Frontline Outreach (FLO), in their kitchens on Kerr Street.
Our volunteers meet at FLO at midday, and work in pairs to deliver the food (and occasionally other items) to about 40 clients. Please note a vulnerable sector police check, which can readily be applied for online to Halton Police Services, is required for this volunteer activity.
Prepared Meals for Delivery is one of several programs set up through St. Jude’s Justice and Servant Ministry Committee. Volunteers do not need to be church parishioners to assist. If you are interested in volunteering or have questions, please contact the church office.
