Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions in place regarding events and concerts, it will come as no surprise that the annual fundraising concert for Potluck Café Society that we heavily support each year is cancelled for 2020. As Potluck pivoted to respond to community need at the start of the pandemic, Tyler and Neil made their supporting donations to help anyway, six months early. Now, without a concert to compel but with a need still just as strong, we invite you to donate now should you be so inclined. Please read the following update from Naved Noorani, Executive Director, to see how Potluck Café stepped up during the early days of the pandemic to help their constituency make it through:

In the first week of July, we concluded of our Emergency Meals program for the DTES community.

It all started in late March, when we felt the full force of the pandemic, Potluck volunteered our services to the City of Vancouver to coordinate the production and delivery of meals and offered up the location for our new facility for a distribution hub.

By early April, we had ramped up to approximately 1100 meals a day, produced by three organizations and distributed through volunteers from the Vancouver Film industry and members form the Teamsters Union.

Through our network, we connected with South Hall Banquet & Event Centre and they generously donated 9000 meals that we directed to the homeless community. Recognizing this need, by raising funding from donations and grants, Potluck and WE Press mobilized a program to provide 1200 meals a day to the homeless community.

Soon we had two programs running concurrently — one funded by the City of Vancouver for SRO residents and the second program funded by donations and grants provided food for the Homeless Community.

We are proud to share that through the City’s funding of $500,000 and an additional $250,000 that was raised through grants and the generous donations we received from great people like yourselves, we catered 150,000 meals to the SRO and homeless community.

We are very grateful for your generous contribution to this incredibly valuable effort - your help was critical to our ability to serve those who faced the full impact of this crippling pandemic.

Although our business, as felt by many others, is non-existent, we are steadily moving ahead with the planning and Capital Fundraising Campaign for our new facility.

Naved also shared that while the concert may not be taking place in person this year, Barney Bentall will be showing his dedication to and support of Potluck with something special later in the fall. Please stay tuned!

In addition, Potluck Café’s catering business is back up and running now — you can order catering through this link — and they are looking to the future. They would be so grateful for community support of their vision, and we know Naved is always excited to speak with anyone who would like to help! He can be reached atnaved@potluckcatering.com anytime!
 
While we won’t be able to sing and dance with you at the concert this year, we look forward to sharing space with everyone again when it’s safe to do so.

In the meantime, be kind, be calm, and be safe.