Staff with Ontario Intercultural Community Services (OICS) are doing their part to combat hunger in Mississauga with the official opening of a community kitchen and food bank near Malton.
OICS executive director Rukhsana Asghar was on hand at the facility's official opening yesterday to provide a tour for dignitaries such as Mississauga-Brampton South MP Navdeep Singh Bains and Bramalea-Gore-Malton MP Gurbax Malhi. The food bank and community kitchen, located in the Derry and Dixie Rds. area of Mississauga at the OICS offices, will be able to serve more than 500 families.
OICS is affiliated with Foodpath, Mississauga's largest food bank.
"We believe healthy and well-fed bodies bring about healthy minds," Asghar previously told The News. "The main purpose of the food bank and community kitchen is socio-economic development of the families we serve. We realized when the belly is full, people can face just about anything in life."
In addition to the kitchen and food bank, there's a resource centre that offers counselling and employment services. The idea is to feed people, but also give them the skills and help they need to advance in life.
The location for the facility was chosen specifically to help the many "working poor" who live in the area.
For more information, visit www.oics.ca.
cclay@mississauga.net
