0:00  
Eastern Africa for

0:04  
Many people might believe that Toronto's Daily Bread Food Bank headquarters would be filled with loads of food donations and people sorting them. What might come as a surprise to many is the bustling kitchen where volunteers help prepare hot meals to be sent out to various places in need around the city. In charge of the giant industrial kitchen, located at the back of the food bank warehouse, is Matthew Meal, the Food Services Manager. He spent the past 12 years working in the UK, and cooking around different countries in Europe.

0:34  
During the last few years that I was in the UK, I started working with some nonprofits that were helping refugees and asylum seekers adjust to new lives and rebuild their lives and get them access to the services that they needed. And it really kind of struck me through that, because I was still working part time in restaurants, how much food was costing. How much food we were throwing away in restaurant kitchens, and how little access some of the other people that I was working with had to food. And so when I returned to Canada, I wanted to kind of meld together my kitchen experiences and social justice side of things. So started actually volunteering at in a Regent Park member agency, in the kitchen there.  And kind of through there heard about the role here and applied and that was pretty much perfectly what I was looking for right bringing those two aspects together. So we make about four to 5000 meals a week, for meal programs around the city. We make soups and casseroles of various kinds, cool them freeze and down shift amounts, we're really working on developing the food that we send out to be more nutritious filling and just better, in general.

1:52  
The kitchen has five full time staff members, and relies heavily on volunteers to help get the work they need done.

1:59  
A lot of the days is working with the volunteers, getting them tasks to do, teaching them some new skills, hopefully, entertaining thing, you know, fun place to work.

2:08  
One of those volunteers is Teresa Hedley.

2:11  
I love helping people, it's just a joy for me, especially when I see the look on their face that they appreciate what you've done. It just makes me feel really happy. Do something for society, because that's what it's all about. There's many people out there who are hungry, you know, and you come and you put stuff together for them and they receive it when they come to the food bank. And that makes them feel good. That's what it's all about.

2:35  
Teresa has only been working at The Daily Bread Food Bank for a couple of weeks. She felt that she needed to get up and do something while she's not working. 

2:43  
For me, it's a sense of worth, I'm doing something you know, to help somebody else. You know, it's not like I'm sitting at home wasting time. Not that I waste time, but I mean you know, just give you a sense of worth and it's good. You never know when you're going to be in need of help. When you know how to help, then when you get to that place, you realize that you don't look down on anyone because they need help. Because we all need help at some point in our lives.

3:12  
Neil believes the whole experience is highly rewarding

3:15  
Knowing that that food is helping people who have trouble accessing good food, get access to good food is hugely and richly rewarding. We recently had our AGM, and a lot of the people from member agencies that people who run meal programs around the city and everything. After dinner, I was wandering through cleaning up and two people from different member agencies came up and said a really big thank you and actually gave me gave me a hug. Like a physical hug and smiled and said food that you guys are making this so good and so important to us. And that's huge difference. Making me tear up a little bit right now. We shared a couple of tears then as well and finally hugs. It was really beautiful to just know that people appreciate it and that we're doing good work and we're trying to do our best. Hopefully, everybody understands that people who benefit from our production, from our services are people from all walks of life. Their university educated people, for people with disabilities, they're everyday people, right? And this can happen to anyone at any time. So the reason I kind of say that is I have to find there's a lot of judgment out there sometimes about you know, people who have to use food banks or people who really need help accessing good food and to not cast any judgment. 

4:42  
Both Neil and Hedley encourage anyone of any age to go to the Daily Bread Food Bank and help volunteer in the kitchen. They believe it's one of the most rewarding experiences they could have. This has been Ashley Puch for News Night.