For decades, the Phoenix Transition Home has limped through meal times but thanks to community donations it really got cooking this week.
Integris Credit Union's staff took on the Phoenix kitchen as a pet project about two years ago and raised most of the $35,000 needed to give the shelter house a commercial kitchen befitting the crowds of people it serves food to.
"I can bake eight loaves of bread at the same time in the new oven," said staff cook Annie Anderson, and she needs it all some days. The large home on 11th Avenue near downtown serves as many as 40 people a day, serving meals in shifts. All who stay there are women and children taking refuge from abusive homes. There are many reasons why women and children spend the night or many nights there, but it is not a small population. More than 420 women and children spent at least one night last year.
The old kitchen was dingy and cramped. Like much of the facility, the high traffic and many years of service puts stress on the equipment. Integris Credit Union staff came over one day in 2011 to volunteer staff time - more than 200 hours - fixing a fence and landscaping the yard. When they went inside, they couldn't help but notice.
"Karen [Underhill, executive director] elbowed me and pointed things out in the kitchen," said Integris engagement and communications manager Dan Wingham. "There were holes in the floor, the equipment was malfunctioning, the counters had an awkward configuration, it was basically dysfunctional."
Today, the stainless steel gleams from the commercial range and oven, sous sink, primary double sinks, the dishwasher, and main refrigerator. There is a supplementary fridge as well, a drop-down countertop to give gathering space in the kitchen or extra working surface, wraparound counters and wall-to-wall cabinets.
It was approximately $35,000 to renovate. Most of it was donated directly by Integris, with $10,000 of it coming from a Concentra Financial grant for worthy credit union charity projects.
"Integris has helped us a number of ways for the past 18, 19 years," said Sharon Hurd, manager of strategic planning with Phoenix Transition Society. "They worked very carefully with us on the financing of a four-plex and two bungalows we also own, for people who need our housing services. And they came to fix our fence and they did all this."
"Phoenix is a member of ours, but we would have done it anyway," said Wingham. "This is a meaningful community investment. This kitchen is nourishing vulnerable women and children at critical times in their lives, and that has a number of positive impacts on our community as a whole."
Hurd said mentorship and a range of experiences are important to demonstrate when women and children in difficult or crisis moments come to their door.
"The kitchen is more than a kitchen," she said. "It is where a family lives its life. All the food is made from scratch. One of the most important parts of life is breaking bread with other people, and that is how we do it here. When do you get to know each other better than making a sandwich or stirring gravy together?"
The women of Phoenix also use the kitchen to give back to the community. Volunteer food preparation is done there for a number of initiatives the society supports, the most recent being a senior's tea that drew more than 260 community elders to the Civic Centre.
