Huntsville’s Table Soup Kitchen seeks funds to open 34 bed shelter building

The Table has grown from a small food bank to include a shelter, soup kitchen and more.

It started 20 years ago as a small weekly soup kitchen. On its first day, volunteers served meals to nine people.

Over all the years the Table Soup Kitchen Foundation has been running, they have seen the need grow.

Now, the organization is opening a 31,000-square-foot facility.

“We have definitely seen the need here in Muskoka, even though it’s very much a cottage country sort of place,” says Heather Cassie, with the Table Soup Kitchen Foundation.

“There is a back door of Muskoka that a lot of people don’t see. We see it every day here at the table.”

Last year, nine per cent of the 24,000 people in Huntsville used their services.

“We do not say no to anybody that comes through our doors. They can shop once a week and receive a large, a large amount of food,” Cassie says.

They now have a soup kitchen, food bank and garden, food rescue program, community kitchen and men’s hostel, all managed out of a mall.

“(We’re) supporting them in some donations we give them every month and also looking after the property,” land lord Sargit Uppal tells CTV News.

“(We) organize with them, whatever they need, they call us. We come and help them and anything like that,” Uppal says.

The Table is now raising money for a 34-bed emergency shelter in this building.

“In Muskoka we have seen the need for an emergency shelter,” Cassie says.

“We see that there’s so many vulnerable people in our community that do not have any place to go and as it’s getting colder outside, the need has just really shown its face,” she adds.

The Table Soup Kitchen says they have the space and the plans.

But they still need donors to make it happen.

“We don’t believe that the need in Muskoka is being well taken care of and that there are still many, many who are struggling with homelessness that don’t belong in hotels,” says Cassie.

“We’ve turned hotels into emergency shelters, and that’s not right,” adds Cassie.

The Table Soup Kitchen team are looking to build their emergency shelter early next year but say they expect it will fill up with men, women and families almost immediately.