Photo Karen Graham.
Pictured from left to right are Jane Berlin, founder of the two local Sandwich Sister pods, with Blank Canvas owner Stacey Knight and volunteers Lori and David Beeby who help provide home made sandwiches and snacks every Thursday for One Roof Community Shelter in Peterborough. Blank Canvas is collecting donations during August and September for the shelter to supplement their ongoing donations from a variety of sources including our local sandwich makes for visitors to the shelter in need of a meal.
Since January, Jane Berlin and a group of volunteers out of Bethany have been preparing sandwiches and snacks once a week for visitors to One Roof Community Centre in Peterborough. This shelter is open 365 days a year and provides free meals, professional training, life skills, access to primary health care as well as safe sleeping quarters. Since the pandemic, they have been unable to serve meals inside their facility but provide a hot take-away lunch. The “Sandwich Sisters”, following the model established in Toronto, deliver their wares to the shelter where they supplement the hot take-away lunch provided daily between 1-2pm. The shelter often find folks coming to their door in the mornings and afternoons looking for snacks, and these sandwiches allow them to respond beyond the lunch hour.
In March, groups in Millbrook and Peterborough joined the effort, so the shelter now has a second meal to hand out four days a week. Jane says the welcome she receives when she drops off the sandwiches to the shelter makes her feel like Santa Claus.
Other organizations and businesses make regular contributions to the shelter, but there is a constant need for supplies. Blank Canvas owner Stacey Knight is collecting donations during the months of August and September at her hair salon/art gallery in Millbrook to add her support. Inside the shop is a donation basket where donors can drop off products such as juice boxes, pudding or fruit cups, bagged carrots, oranges or granola bars. Cash donations are also welcome. Every donor will receive a small gift of wildflowers in a mason jar of a shampoo sample. For every customer who prebooks their next two hair appointments, Stacey will donate $10 to the shelter.
The Bethany and Millbrook Sandwich Sister groups are looking to recruit more help. Each “sister” prepares two loaves of sandwiches and tosses in extras such as carrot sticks, cookies or other treats once a week. Millbrook members drop off their donations on Thursday mornings at the Millbrook Farm and Pet Supply store beside the LCBO, and the Bethany group delivers on Monday to coolers placed at the end of Jane’s driveway just north of town.
If you’re in the Bethany or Millbrook area and wish to contribute to this program, please contact Jane at her new email: sandwichsistersmb@gmail.com. KG
