Palgrave United Community Kitchen celebrates 10 years

Written By ALYSSA PARKHILL

Locals, members of the Town of Caledon and Council gathered this past Saturday at the Palgrave United Church to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Palgrave United Community Kitchen.

The Palgrave United Community Kitchen is a Peel Health certified kitchen. The kitchen is available to rent by business groups, clubs or even individuals. The kitchen “comes equipped with all the necessities for cooking and baking. Some of the items include pots, pans, baking trays, measuring cups and utensils, coffee makers, stoves, ovens industrial dishwasher, industrial sinks, large bowls, scissors, cutting boards, large knives, etc.” states on their website

The kitchen opened in 2009.

The kitchen engages local residents through workshops and programs to not only promote the kitchen, but to educate and motivate locals to eat, cook and know about healthier options. 

“The Palgrave United Community Kitchen is committed to the creation of a healthy, sustainable local food system.” 

MPP Sylvia Jones and MP Kyle Seeback both made an appearance to the Palgrave Church to support hitting this milestone for the kitchen. 

Resilient Caledon made an appearance to the event as well, to support and continue to educate the community on local changes the community can participate in to help the environment. The Palgrave United Church became more environmentally friendly in 2013 when they began using clean solar panels to generate their electricity. 

“In six years, the sun has made 60,110 kilo watt hours of energy,” says Barbara Imrie, member of the community kitchen. 

The kitchen hosts two Fresh Lunch programs for the local schools. Students register and every Friday get the opportunity to cook and create their own lunch from the kitchen's buffet, all filled with healthy, local food. The sessions run for over two months, and if some students have yet to register, are able to ‘pay as you go'. 

About 60 members of the community attended the meeting to celebrate the hard work over the past 10 years.

“We were the first certified Peel Health community kitchen in Caledon,” says Imrie. “We started to evolve, we ended up having support from the Town of Caledon's Green Fund to become a certified kitchen.”

She added, “We've done over 60 workshops in the past five years. Workshops include cooking, as well as preserving. We've also have had 30,000 fresh lunch meals prepared for the Palgrave and Macville Schools, and we started that in 2012. In order to do that we had 3,000 hours of volunteers to help.” 

The kitchen has a volunteer-based committee that has been with the kitchen for the decade that it's been producing healthy food for the community. 

For more about the Palgrave United Community Kitchen and their programs, please visit palgravekitchen.org.