Fresh Choice Kitchens (formerly the Vancouver Community Kitchen Project) works to create opportunities for people to cook together, thereby building community strength through food. What began as a Vancouver area effort in the mid-’90s has evolved into a community kitchen resource for all B.C. It creates and collects educational tools and shares them through workshops, in print and online. It supports individuals and community groups who want to run a kitchen. It fosters independence by offering groups the knowledge and resources that community kitchens (CKs) need to manage themselves and to overcome obstacles.
One of the project’s key jobs is to be in the know – to provide those crucial links that help diverse sectors of our communities contact each other and work together. That could be something as simple as finding good new homes for donated used-but-valuable cooking equipment, or more complex tasks such as helping CK members take advantage of other organizations’ educational programs.
Many B.C. organizations focus on food and health, each from its own individual perspective. It’s natural for cooperative relationships to form because groups to find strength in each other’s work. Along with the Fresh Choice Kitchen’s now-parent organization, the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society , the project has developed strong working ties with others concerned with food security. They include Your Local Farmers Market , which runs four outdoor markets around Vancouver in summer and early fall, as well as an off-season indoor market, and DECK – the Downtown Eastside Community Kitchen Project . With support from the Food Bank and Vancouver Coastal Health, DECK helps residents of single-room occupancy hotels become self-sufficient by learning to cook in community kitchens.
