'They need my help': Volunteer cook pays it forward to North End meal program

CBC Manitoba is hosting live events all day Friday to raise money for Winnipeg Harvest. Here's how to listen or attend the events. To donate to Winnipeg Harvest, call 204-982-3582 until 8 p.m. CT Friday, text FeedHope to 45678 (minimum donation by text is $20) or visit Winnipeg Harvest online (select 'CBC Harvesting Hope Radiothon' in the drop-down menu) until the evening of Sunday, Dec. 8.

If you had told Charlene Melquist 10 years ago she would be chopping vegetables and cooking soup every day for families in need, she wouldn't have believed it. 

"I came here actually to do laundry 10 years ago," Melquist said.

"Next thing you know they asked me to make a pot of soup, and I said I can't! They talked me into doing that pot of soup and I never left."

Melquist has been a volunteer cook for 10 years. It is her way of giving back to the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre, the organization that she said saved her life a decade ago.

"I was on the streets, you know, drinking and doing drugs," she said. "I wasn't ready to have this kind of life, a sober life."

Melquist said her road to recovery began when she was approached by a woman from Ma Mawi who asked if she needed help.

"I said I needed to do a load of laundry for a dollar," Melquist said. "And she said 'I know a place you can do it for free.'"  

Path to sobriety

The 58-year-old mother is now part of a team of volunteers working in the kitchen at the North Y Youth Centre located at 363 McGregor St. in the North End. The meal program is supported by local food bank Winnipeg Harvest

But Melquist said her journey to recovery wasn't easy. 

"I would stay sober for half a day just to go there and cook that soup for them," she said, adding that she stopped using drugs the more she went into the kitchen to help.

"And little by little I started to come around more often."

The community care centre inside the building is run by Ma Mawi, which has been helping Indigenous families in Winnipeg for 30 years.

The meal program in the North End serves about 300 meals and snacks to low-income families every day.  All the food served is provided by Winnipeg Harvest.  

The building also houses a drop-in centre that offers a safe space for low-income families to gather and access free laundry services and donated clothing.

Melquist had a smile on her face as she chopped garlic for the lunch meal on Thursday.  

"We're going to have hamburger vegetable soup with crackers and butter bread. They're going to love it!"

She said she loves the people she serves.

"I came from the North End and everyone I meet here I've known for a long time. Maybe I don't know their names but I see them on the streets, and I know they need my help."

She said she has also learned to love cooking again.

"My mom taught me how to cook," she said. "I got better and better, next thing you know I'm cooking two big pots of soup here."

• 200 families to receive Christmas hampers through Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata annual drive

Wally Chartrand manages the North Y Youth Centre, where he holds the title "Keeper of the Spirit." He said the building on McGregor is one of two Ma Mawi facilities that offer meal services, the other being west of downtown on Spence Street.

"For sure it feels sad in a way that families are struggling but at the same time it makes me feel happy that we're able to fill a little bit of that void for families," Chartrand said.

The plan now is to expand to a third location in the Elmwood area, which Chartrand hopes will be open by the end of January.

"We see a lot of community members from that area that are coming here, accessing this service here on McGregor, so we've seen a void in that area," he said.

"We've also noticed that there's a large Indigenous community within that Elmwood area as well."

Chartrand said most of the funding for the new centre is coming from United Way and The Winnipeg Foundation. He also said the meal services would not be possible without the support of Winnipeg Harvest.