Neighbours warm up with smiles and hot meals at Crouch neighbourhood centre

Warm greetings are exchanged as a group gathers waiting for lunch outside the London Public Library's Crouch Branch on a crisp Thursday in December.

About 70 people come here weekly for a hot meal, food from the pantry and friendship. 

"I've never missed a Thursday yet," said Bill McKenzie, who's been volunteering for more than a year and a half at the Crouch Neighbourhood Resource Centre (Crouch NRC). 

"I just enjoy coming down here and seeing the staff, the smiles on people's faces," he said. "I feel in my heart that there's a lot of people out there in need."

McKenzie has been living in the neighbourhood for about six years. He sees the struggles his neighbours face. A hot meal means a lot, he said.

"We all have to eat."

Good food is what makes Kayla Scott a regular at the Crouch NRC. Today, a warm bowl of beef and vegetable stew is on the menu, steaming as it swirls in the cool air.  

"I'm struggling sometimes. So I do come and enjoy some of the meals and it helps me throughout the month to make sure my money stretches that much further," she said. 

She isn't the only one. Food insecurity is on the rise across Ontario with foods banks seeing an increase of 42 per cent in visits over the past three years, according to Feed Ontario's Hunger Report 2022. 

"A lot of people are are finding it tough. They're not being able to make ends meet," Scott said. 

"Sometimes it's poutine, sometimes it's sweet and sour pork with rice. Sometimes it's soup, sometimes it's spaghetti. He always tries to switch it up," she said of Bifana Boys, a Portuguese fusion food truck that cooks the meals. 

At the lunches "everybody knows pretty much everybody," Scott said. She finds Hamilton Road is a neighbourhood where everybody looks out for each other.

'Our community shouldn't be dependent on those services to live'

Inside the library, the Crouch NRC offers a food pantry and supports out of their small office. They've been a point of connection for basic need supports and community programming for more than 50 years. 

"Everyone who works here has had some lived experience of poverty," said Jennifer Martino, executive director of the Crouch NRC. "Anybody who's struggling right now could very easily be any of us — and it really has been all of us."

Martino said for many in the neighbourhood, strategies that once worked to save enough money for food at the end of the month don't work anymore.

"It doesn't matter now how you manage to share and be creative with your accommodation. It's taking an entire cheque that somebody gets, especially if they're on social assistance, just to maintain that housing." Many people in the neighbourhood live in boarding houses or shared living spaces, she said. 

Anybody who's struggling right now could very easily be any of us... and it really has been all of us.- Jennifer Martino, Crouch NRC executive director 

"And that's why we see people coming out to our hot meal program and our food cupboard. And those are important services, but the reality is that our community shouldn't be dependent on those services to live."

The group has seen a nearly 50 per cent increase in people coming for basic need supports over the last year. 

Most of their volunteers also access supports at the centre and are looking for a way to give back, Martino said.  

Wait list is growing for new winter coats and boots

The need extends beyond food. The demand for winter coats and boots is also growing at Crouch NRC. 

The group is running a Warm Winter Wishes campaign to keep people bundled up against the cold. Money is being raised to purchase new coats and boots for each person's size. They ran out of supplies in the first week of the program, and now have a wait list.

Martino is hopeful more donations will come. 

"This community is a place where people want to take care of their neighbours," she said.

Caring for neighbours can come in many different forms. 

 "People aren't like plants that just need water and soil to be well. They also need kindness, they need respect and they need access to things that make all of us happy," Martino said. 

"You don't need to work in this field to be able to just spend a moment with somebody, ask how they're doing and learn something new about them — and that goes a long way."