Valentine Uwakwe (image credit - CFJC Today)

By Michael Reeve

PIT STOP SUNDAY MEALS

Faced with rising costs, PIT Stop Kamloops asks for community support to keep weekly meal program rolling

Jan 27, 2025 | 4:48 PM

KAMLOOPS — PIT Stop Kamloops has been dealt a tough hand of late, with increasing need across the community and the loss of its home in the Kamloops United Church fire last year.

Since the blaze the weekly meal program has been able to find its footing, now cooking meals out of the CMHA kitchen and serving them in the St. Paul’s Cathedral. But the challenges of the past few months, combined with the rising cost of food, have begun to take a toll.

“Putting all this together has not really been easy, especially [financial stresses have] been so much on our shoulders right now. Making the hot meals, transporting to a different location, having it set out — and the numbers are still many. But now we need significant support from the community to get through this time, and at least manage through this process,” said PIT Stop Coordinator Valentine Uwakwe.

PIT Stop is asking for the public’s help with donations to ensure the program can continue, noting it costs the program approximately $2,000 every Sunday to prepare the meal for the 150-to-200 guests who attend. That’s in addition to the support received from community partners like Cobs Bread and the Kamloops Food Bank.

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“The guests we are helping, we are supporting, most of them are vulnerable. And when there is a shift in consistency of supports of someone who is struggling on the streets, there is a tendency of the person lapsing, there is a tendency of the person giving up both on themself and the project,” said Uwakwe. “We wouldn’t want to give up on them. That is why we are trying to make sure we are there, come rain, come sun.”