By Leslie Morgenson
Published in September 2006
It was as if an extended family of 300 had moved in on July 25th when St. John’s Kitchen set up its new home at 97 Victoria St. North. And the neighbours were watching intently, sizing up the newcomers. It was certainly the kind of scene the late activist and writer Jane Jacobs would have loved; neighbours kibbutzing, jostling to accommodate each other. One neighbouring business hired four people for day work within the first week. Talking toward solutions was Jane Jacobs’ idea of urban development.
If poetry is language at its best the new St. John’s Kitchen is space at its best. The airy open concept allows for conversation and connection between the kitchen and the dining area. Through large windows streams natural sunlight and ventilation. The larger kitchen, says one volunteer, means the food preparers are not tripping over each other. And the painted walls splashed with warm food colors, paprika, mango, tangelo have meant not only is this a place of refuge but also a place of enjoyment. And people seem quite uplifted by their new space. It has a café feel, many have said.
“Thank you for making us feel as if we deserve a nice place,” someone said upon first entering this new community kitchen with a café style.
“We may no longer be in a church but the new space feels spiritual,” said another diner. Recently, after a meal, another patron commented that the space shows a generous heart on the part of many who contributed in so many ways to its creation.
Having a building that is specifically built around the needs of the people being served means ideally, that all the services provided run more efficiently. Our new home is not only a kitchen, but also has medical offices shared at the moment by the Kitchener Downtown Community Health Clinic on Tuesdays and the Psychiatric Outreach Program on Thursdays – two programs that have been of great benefit to our community. We now have a small lending library, and in the Fall we will have available free showers and laundry facilities. It is a welcoming space that seems to invite ideas of possibility for the future.
And while we look to the future we cannot ignore the historical past of this long- standing building. Mitchell Button Co. was the first business to occupy this building. As the train leaves the station across the street we are reminded of how this location on the train line, was crucial to Mitchell Button Co. (established in 1927) during a time when buttons were big business and Kitchener was considered the button capital of Canada. The company originally made buttons from mother-of-pearl and fresh water shell, but later they were made from plastics at which point the company become known as Mitchell Plastics.
In the 1970’s, Dumont Press Graphix, a workers’ collective typesetting shop set up home printing, for example, “Labour/Le Travail” The Journal of Canadian Labour Studies, past issues of which have been donated to The Working Centre Library. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul operated the thrift store for over 20 years on the main floor. Within our current population, we have some musicians who once recorded their albums on the second floor at Sound on Sound Recording Studio where we now dine, converse, and support each other.
We also share the space today with Worth a Second Look Furniture on the ground floor, a thriving used furniture store.
The French philosopher, Gaston Bachelard writes in his book, The Poetics of Space, about the influence of architectural spaces on our creative imagination. The four walls we find ourselves within, he argues, influence and inspire us, allow us to daydream, as well as sheltering and protecting us. With this in mind, it seems only right to give people the best possible space in which to be.
We are a community kitchen with an invitation open to all to come for a coffee, a meal or a look around.
