The new Out of the Cold Café organized by WOW Living kicked off its first week with plenty of volunteer help and food donations for ready-made lunches and snacks available to community members in need.
The café shares the building space with A Hand Up Clothing Room (operated by CrossTrainers Canada Ministries) located at the old St. Mary’s Building at 31 Frederick Street in Bradford. The café is situated in the lower basement level and the clothing room is on the upper level.
Working in conjunction to maximize the level of support offered to locals, both centres were busy with clients visiting the clothing room (for more winter apparel) while grabbing a free lunch from the café downstairs.
Pattie LaRose, co-founder and Executive Director with CrossTrainers Canada and Jodi Greenstreet, owner and founder of WOW Living, not only serve together at the centre but have been best friends for over a decade and continue to support each other's missionary initiatives.
LaRose and Greenstreet are gearing up for the winter months ahead and preparing for their annual ‘wish list’ program and Christmas dinner.
“Bradford is so under-resourced so we just want to honour and focus on people in the community who need the help the most,” notes LaRose, adding that CrossTrainers Canada had to make a few slight changes to their polices this year to accomodate.
Bradford clients who have visited/registered at the clothing room at least twice this year will have the opportunity to apply for the ‘wish list’ program where families can write down what they would like or need for Christmas and community members adopt them and fill those wishes.
“We’ve had people ask for something that is a name brand they could never afford, to people asking for toilet paper, so it’s a wide range," shares LaRose. “We put them on our website with permission to post their first name(s) only and what their wish list is, and then people can adopt a family, go out and shop, wrap it, and drop the gifts off to the centre by December 3."
With the Out of the Cold Café open every day, this will allow for easier drop offs of any purchased gifts for the centre’s wish list program.
On Dec. 6 the centre will be offering a take-out Christmas dinner in lieu of their annual sit-down dinner. A pre-packaged turkey dinner will be supplied to clients who registered for the wish list program and they will be able to pick up their pre-wrapped gifts to take home the same day.
“This our twelfth year for the wish list," shares LaRose. “Last year we had 175 families on the list… our biggest list yet!”
LaRose and Greenstreet wish to note that their dinner operation and wish list is separate from the food bank’s program.
To register for the wish list program, visit CrossTrainers Canada (A Hand Up & Out of the Cold Café) in person to fill out an application.
