Upper Room Soup Kitchen keeping its takeout option

The Upper Room Soup Kitchen in Charlottetown will continue its takeout service, even when COVID-19 restrictions are fully lifted.

Like most food and beverage services, the Upper Room Soup Kitchen made changes to its services to fall in line with Chief Public Health Office guidelines.

Lorraine Goley, the manager at the soup kitchen, said she hadn't considered a takeout option before the pandemic, but is sticking to it.

"We are going to because it turned out to be very successful. We do reach people now that we wouldn't have been serving because they didn't want to come in for health issues and different issues that they had with crowds and stuff," she said.

"I was kind of taken by surprise by the people who wanted to continue doing it and some of the people who did eat in, much prefer to take out now."

The need for the soup kitchen increased when pandemic restrictions were put into effect.

"Over 100 people were coming here, whereas normally we get between 70 and 80 on average," Goley said.

"The numbers rose, and then when we went to the takeout, they rose again."

With COVID-19 restrictions easing up in Prince Edward Island, services at the soup kitchen are returning to normal, but the takeout option is still used the most, Goley said.

"We do have more people who are starting to come back and eat in, but we still have far more going out," she said.

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