By Chad Klassen

THANKSGIVING

The Mustard Seed noticing growing costs, clientele as annual Thanksgiving dinner approaches

Oct 6, 2022 | 4:07 PM

KAMLOOPS — Thanksgiving is on Monday, and while most of us will be at home gathering with family, some in Kamloops don’t have any family or meal to enjoy.

However, organizations like The Mustard Seed and the PIT Stop program are ensuring people in the city don’t go without.

At The Mustard Seed, the turkeys are ready to be cooked, the pumpkin pies have been ordered, and volunteers are hard at work preparing to make mashed potatoes for annual Thanksgiving dinner on Monday.

“Somewhere in the neighbourhood of 25 to 28 turkeys are going to be cooked, cut up. Potatoes and everything else to go with it,” noted The Mustard Seed’s managing director Kelly Thomson. “We’ve got pumpkin pie for dessert as well. So it’s basically the same kind of dinner you or I would get in our houses that we will serve to our guests because they deserve that.”

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Without COVID restrictions for the first time in two years, The Seed will have people seated at the West Victoria Street location. Staff expects between 220 and 270 people at the dinner on Monday — anyone from the homeless to low-income families to seniors.

“What we do find is a lot of times, and we talk to, especially seniors we’re seeing come through and use our services, and a lot of them, they have a choice between paying their rent or having food. So we’ve told them pay your rent, come here. We’ve got your back,” noted Thomson.

The Mustard Seed has noticed more clients with recent inflation making it difficult to make ends meet. The organization itself has noticed the extremely high costs.

“Our food costs are probably up around 40 per cent,” said Thomson. “That’s a big cost obviously. We used to do a meal for $3.51. It’s now costing us $5.38. That’s just the hard numbers.”

PIT Stop at the Kamloops United Church will serve its Thanksgiving dinner a day earlier on Sunday.

“We have the United Steelworkers coming to provide a beautiful ham supper for us on Sunday afternoon and they are also going to be providing a bunch of bagged lunches, sandwiches for people to take as they leave our PIT Stop service,” said Tomas Bijok from the PIT Stop program.

PIT Stop expects 150 people, and like The Mustard Seed it will see a diverse group of people.

“I’m seeing more young families coming through PIT Stop and that is a need we have been seeing,” noted Bijok. “More and more we’ve seeing senior citizens that need help.”

With the rising cost of providing such meals, both organizations encourage anyone who can to donate to the cause.