The Gathering Place soup kitchen is leaving its Algonquin Ave. location for Cassells St. and kicking off a $800,000 fundraising campaign to help them do it.
Executive Director Jill Clark told a news conference at the Elks Club this morning that $462,000 has already been raised.
The charity serves thousands of hot meals to those in need as well as delivering a number of community programs.
Mayor Al McDonald and businessman John Lechlitner are co-chairing the campaign.
"This is one of the places our family has always felt strongly about," Lechlitner told BayToday. "We're very big on grassroots organizations with people helping people in the community. We take this very seriously, that to build a strong community, everyone has to contribute.
"The reality of life is that every community needs one. The Gathering Place has not hidden the fact there is a need and has done a good job in challenging the community to help those less fortunate."
The Gathering Place currently serves as many as 150 people a day with only 23 available seats.
The new building will cost $270,000 with the other $530,000 addressing health and safety considerations and create the infrastructure to support the group's program offerings. Clark hopes to move in by the fall of 2017.
"One of the things we really had to consider was the location," explained Clark. "The majority of our clients walk to come to us from their homes, and so we did a postal code survey to see where most of them live and Cassells was within that radius.
"The need is greater than ever."
Volunteer and user of the soup kitchen, Lee Dreany told the audience, "A lot of people rely on the Gathering Place for their only decent well-balanced meal each day, a meal they can't get at home. People with low income often must choose between paying the rent and putting food on the table."
Dreany has been a volunteer for more than five years.
"Each year I have seen the number of users grow. When I started, we averaged 40 to 50 daily meals served in the winter, and 70 to 80 served in the summer. Last summer we were serving from 140 to 160 meals daily and this winter, our numbers grew to 80 to 120 meals served daily."
Over the past 12 years the Gathering Place has served more than 250,000 hot meals and is proud of never turning anyone away.
