Given the popularity of weekday meal service at Our Place B次元官网网址� more than 1,200 are served  daily Monday to Friday B次元官网网址� the absence of weekend service at the Pandora Avenue facility has been a large hole.

The ability to offer lunch for the cityB次元官网网址檚 street community and others living in poverty has been a goal for quite a while for the non-profit Our Place Society, admits executive director Don Evans.

B次元官网网址淲eekends are a challenge for people to find meals,B次元官网网址� he said. B次元官网网址淭hereB次元官网网址檚 a few places that have sporadic (soup kitchens), but we felt lunch was the biggest gap.B次元官网网址�

On Saturday and Sunday, clients sat down to a weekend lunch for the first time at Our Place. The service provider is using a grant of nearly $50,000 from the Victoria Foundation to offer the meals in a six-month pilot project.

Poverty and food security have been identified as major concerns in the community, foundation CEO Sandra Richardson said in a release.

B次元官网网址淲e are so pleased to be able to assist Our Place Society with this important initiative,B次元官网网址� she said.

Evans said the weekend lunch program provides an opportunity to get people indoors and keep them warm and dry on the cold, wet days of late fall and winter.

Our Place will look for other funding sources to not only keep the lunch service going past May, but to offer other meals on weekends, he added. B次元官网网址淭his is a good start. And IB次元官网网址檓 sure the numbers will show that the need is great on the weekend.B次元官网网址�

For more about Our Place visit ourplacesociety.com.

editor@vicnews.com