Meg Tucker gives Coun. Victor Doerksen a crash course in cutting safely. (rdnewsNOW/Ashley Lavallee-Koenig)

By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

$40 PER CLASS

Red Deer Food Bank cooks up new educational experience

Jun 7, 2024 | 5:03 PM

Notes of fresh parmesan, basil and garlic float through the air at Kitchen 49 as Meg Tucker shows us how to safely use a chopping knife and class officially begins. With enthusiasm and patience, she walks us through the process of creating a homemade tomato sauce, which is simmering on the stove, followed by a simple gnocchi dough. Her team makes their rounds through the room, warmly offering advice and ensuring we are all on track as we move through the steps.

A welcoming, supportive atmosphere like this is what you can expect from a Kitchen 49 class held at the Red Deer Food bank.

The new installment can accomodate 16 people and officially began offering classes at the end of May. Its aim is to educate both the general public and food bank hamper clients on different cooking staples. The kitchen hosted a sample of one of these classes on June 5, which community members and city councillors attended.

Classes offered to the public are currently $40 per class, which covers the cost of materials and maintaining the space. Any left-over revenue goes directly into the food bank’s funds.

“When people register for classes, if they are a paid class, the proceeds stay right here at the food bank. The goal of this space is to be for the community to register to come to learn to cook, to learn new skills, to learn new recipes,” says Tucker, who owns Cook with Meg and is a partner of the food bank.

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Hamper client classes are offered for free and teach users what kinds of meals they can make to get the most from the items they receive, and how to store food for the best shelf-life.

“There’s over 20 billion pounds of food that’s wasted in Canada each year and if we can just teach people how to store it better in their fridge, prepare it, repurpose it, and serve it, we create more spaces around the table and a healthier, happier community,” adds Mitch Thomson, executive director of the Food Bank, “and we will achieve our goal of alleviating hunger today but preventing it tomorrow.”

As part of its efforts to reduce waste, the food bank is also partnered with a local pig farmer who collects and uses the scraps from these classes, and expired stock, as feed for the pigs.

“I’m proud to share that we have maintained a record of zero food waste for the last thirty months, a testament to our efficient operations,” Thomson shares.

Last year, the food bank served a total of 70,219 clients, 27,700 of which received emergency hampers. Thomson shared that approximately one third of their clients are individuals who have lived in Canada for 10 years or less.

One of the goals of the kitchen is to be multicultural-minded and teach these clients how to use the staples in their hamper, which in some cases are items that they are unaccustomed to, and to discover new ways to use those staples.

“In this kitchen we want to bring that taste of the world to Red Deer. We want everyone that’s here in the community to be able to share their cultural pallet and cuisine, to come together as a community and to learn together. We’re going to bring in guest lecturers: cooks, chefs, culinary people, to share food from around the world,” says Thomson.

A sample of the type of hamper items a family would typically receive was on display during the class to visually communicate what they have to work with and why getting the most out of it matters.

A family can receive a hamper like this once per 28 days. (rdnewsNOW/Ashley Lavallee-Koenig)

In the first four months of 2024, the food bank served 500 more families than they did in the same timeframe in 2023.

“The Red Deer Food Bank is in a very difficult space. The consistent demand over the last three years has been record breaking, and each year significantly more than the last. It has depleted a lot of our reserves. From an operating standpoint, we don’t have the cash flow to keep the fridge full, the coolers with lots of meat and fresh produce, and we’re not able to buy as strategically because we just don’t have the resources available,” Thomson says.

For those looking to help the situation, Thomson says cash donations are best, although they are always appreciative of the food they receive as well.

“We are keeping our head above water but just marginally,” he says. “We just encourage those who have the ability to contribute if they can. It really is a cash flow situation when our coffers get this bare and our cupboards get this bare. Anybody who has the ability to give can make a difference in the lives of many people in our community.”

Turbulent times haven’t stopped the organization from getting creative and continuing to improve their services to the community, however.

Access to the building is currently under construction to make it more accessible for mobility aid users, and they are implementing tools to help staff better communicate with those with vision, hearing, and cognitive disabilities.

In addition to the creation of Kitchen 49, the organization is in the process of installing sea cans equipped with hydroponics so they can grow more vegetables on-site.

READ MORE: Red Deer Food Bank marks 40 years of helping community

Homemade gnocchi and tomato sauce; the product of a sample Kitchen 49 class held on June 5. (rdnewsNOW/Ashley Lavallee-Koenig)

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