Take Advantage of Your Seniority

Dining Room

"Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have." - Doris Mortman

The Heart of Evergreen

Follow your nose to the heart of Evergreen and enjoy the smells, sounds and warmth of the dining room and kitchen. Without the good food and camaraderie from the Evergreen kitchen, the Seniors Centre would be simply a series of meeting rooms.

Every weekday, an average of forty to fifty people partake of hearty bacon and egg breakfasts, and such aromatic meals as chicken paprikash, cod veracruz, and pineapple curry chicken. Some days, as many as eighty people are served, and on special occasions such as Christmas or Thanksgiving, the staff cook for over two hundred. The Volunteer Appreciation dinner in November sees staff working from 5am until midnight to feed four hundred people.

The Evergreen kitchen story becomes even more amazing when one realizes all but one of the staff are volunteers and mostly seniors. The "but one" is kitchen organizer and assistant cook, Jocelynn Desroches, employed by the City of Guelph.

Jocelynn starts her day at 5am preparing to make all the day's meals and snacks from scratch. She's quick to say the menu is nutritionally balanced and made on location as much as possible. "We even do the baking from scratch," she says proudly. The smell of hot fruit turnovers and homemade meat pies wafting out of the oven attests to that fact.

Jocelynn has 31 years experience in the kitchen, 12 years at Evergreen, and previous years cooking for camps. She does the planning and organizing, menu choices and recipes, smiling as she explains most of the recipes come out of her head.

She's helped by a large contingent of volunteers, three or four a day, who work from 9:00 am to 1:30 pm once a week or often biweekly. Volunteers also buy supplies from No Frills every Friday. A free delivery system to nearby apartment buildings by volunteer drivers insures that anyone who wants it can have a hot meal on wheels. But the hardest volunteer job to fill is that of dishwasher - even with machine assistance, Jocelynn laughs.

Jocelynn's title is 'Assistant Cook' by choice, even though she is currently responsible for the whole kitchen. Since head chef, Nicole DeByer, left a few months ago, Jocelynn has been in charge, but she says she doesn't want Nicole's job. She prefers that city staff at Evergreen do the "computer work," which includes buying, ordering and costing. She doesn't know yet if a full-time head chef will be hired in the New Year.

In the meantime, tasty nutritious meals, snacks, sandwiches, soups, muffins, pies and cookies continue to attract GWSA members and Evergreen visitors as Jocelynn keeps the kitchen cheerful and running smoothly from Monday to Friday.

Backup volunteers are always welcome. Interested? Call Wendy Kornelsen at 519-823-1291 x2684.

Webmaster: Ken Russell Email: gwsainfo@gmail.com