The need for food for those in need in the community is at an all-time high.
The group Feeding Windsor-Essex is trying to help by opening a new Centre for Food Security in an apartment building at 495 Glengarry Avenue where up to 45,000 people from 1,200 households will be fed every year.
The new site will offer community space for coffee time, Saturday night meals, the group's second pet food bank, an after-school soup program, plus a grow station with over 400 plants where users can learn the basics of growing herbs, fruits and vegetables in their own homes.
The United Way will also have office space on site and counsellors from Matthew House will be available at scheduled times.
Executive Director Rodger Fordham told AM800's The Kyle Horner Show, the space is for people experiencing food insecurity, or isolation. "We have some community partners in there, you know from the United Way and Matthew House will have counsellors there from time to time and it will be a more wrap around service for those, not the homeless, but for people who are living in poverty."
A soft opening for the new Feeding Windsor-Essex Centre for Food Security will be held next week.
Fordham says young people in need of a good meal are encouraged to attend. "We're going to have a kitchen there for our after-school soup program and we're going to be doing other programming out of that kitchen. St. Clair College is going to be doing some work down there with students too."
Last year, the Feeding Windsor-Essex location on Drouillard Road served over 125,000 meals across the region.
Donations can be made here: https://www.feedingwindsoressex.ca/
--With files from The Kyle Horner Show