Maurita's Kitchen, located at 66 Queen St. S., seeks to build on the communal nature of food preparation. The kitchen, named for The Working Centre's late board president, Maurita McCrystal, compliments The Working Centre's Urban Agriculture projects by providing a certified kitchen for processing, learning, and gathering around food projects. These projects include:

Links: How to Reach Us Volunteering Article: Building on the Traditions of Communal Food Preparation

• Queen Street Commons Café
  Maurita's Kitchen is the hub where the food for the Queen Street Commons Café is prepared. Our volunteers prepare vegetarian entrées, baked goods, and desserts.
• GROW Herbal Gardens
  The kitchen will provide a space for processing harvest from GROW Herbal Gardens and for creating various herbal products.
• Queen Street Bake Oven
  Foods such as doughs for bread and pizza are prepared in the kitchen and transported to a wood-fired bake oven at Queens Greens Community Garden for baking.
• Whole Food Box Community Supported Agriculture and Food Buying Club
  The Whole Food Box and Buying Club projects provide fresh, organic, and varied produce from local farmers to members of the CSA program. Maurita's Kitchen will serve as a place to process this produce.
• Youth Mentorship in Agriculture
  Training for youth in Urban Agriculture is supplemented by this kitchen, providing the opportunity to teach food preparation skills to those involved.

Volunteering!

The kitchen offers a practical learning environment, where volunteers make all the meals from scratch. If you wish to volunteer with the kitchen, contact Margaret at 749-9177 ext. 232.

Ways to Volunteer:

Baking Sessions: Tuesdays & Thursdays from 1-3pm
Learn to bake healthy desserts using natural ingredients. Volunteers needed to bake cookies, cakes, and other tasty treats for the Queen Street Commons Cafe.

Celebration of Foods Cooking Group for New Canadians: Every Tuesday from 1-3pm
Are you interested in cooking, meeting other New Canadians, and sharing your recipes? Join us for informal group cooking sessions. To register in advance, please call 519-743-1151 ext. 0 and leave a message for Norma Medina.

Vegetarian Cooking Sessions: Every weekday morning 9-12pm
Want to learn new vegetarian recipes, cook with whole foods, share your skills, and help produce food for the Queen Street Commons Café.

Funding for Maurita's Kitchen

Thank you to those who have contributed to the building of Maurita's Kitchen:

• The Ontario Trillium Foundation has contributed $126,000 towards the cost of renovating 66 Queen St. S.
• HRSDC has contributed labourers and $41,000 for building materials for 66 Queen through a Job Creation Partnership.
• The Cowan Foundation offered a substantial contribution of $30,000 to build, furnish, and equip Maurita's Kitchen.
• ACE Bakery has given $10,000 towards the development of Maurita's Kitchen