Unemployed Help Centre Launches New Soup Program

A new soup program at the Unemployed Help Centre is expected to assist 30,000 people in Windsor-Essex per year.

CEO June Muir says the Farm to Food program will rescue damaged or unused produce from area farmers.

She says the produce will then be used to make fresh soup.

"We're breaking it down, we're making it into healthy nutritional soup," says Muir.  "We're getting it into the bowls into hungry adults and children to eat throughout Windsor and Essex County and then it's also going up the highway."      

Muir adds there is enough produce in the area to feed the local community and across the province.

"We're able to do something about it," says Muir.  "So Windsor really is at the lead because Windsor is the first community, we have a community kitchen to be able to rescue produce make it into soup and get it out people.  We're going to get it out to over 500,000 people."     

The help centre along with Feed Ontario applied for a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation for the three-year pilot program.

They received a $750,000 grant last year but Muir says more funding was needed to get the program off the ground.

She says Unifor donated $150,000 towards the program.

The help centre started making soup on May 6th.