Video by: Madison Schuliakewich
Multimedia by: Koylan Azofeifa
By: Sophia de Guzman
Among the most affected by Ontario’s COVID-19 lockdowns are soup kitchens and shelters. While the new restrictions on everyday life have affected all organizations of all kinds, the volunteer-driven soup kitchens and shelters face unique challenges.
Many of the individuals who keep these soup kitchens and shelters afloat are volunteers. Commonly these volunteers come from the student placement programs in schools, high school students fulfilling graduation requirements, and regular people from the city who want to help out. Due to COVID-19 lockdown, many volunteers from secondary and post-secondary schools were immediately pulled from their placements and as the risk of infection grew, many other volunteers wanted to end their work too.
“A lot of volunteers that were just people who wanted to volunteer, they were scared, they were very afraid because we’re dealing with all sorts of people,” said Joanne Hopkinson, administrator of programs at Knight’s Table soup kitchen.
This holds especially true as the public’s best weapon against COVID-19 is Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), something that nearly all of the clientele do not have regular access to. Soup kitchens and shelters have also seen a significant increase in clientele as a result of many people losing a stable source of income and even their homes after the COVID-19 lockdowns.
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This puts soup kitchens and shelters in the impossible position of needing to adhere to the Ontario Ministry of Health guidelines while still providing the essential service of caring for the province’s more vulnerable.
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