(Quebec) A food bank in the capital that was desperately looking for a place to relocate has finally managed to find the rare pearl, thanks in particular to the help of a major real estate developer in Quebec.
La Bouchée Généreux can no longer meet the demand of the capital’s most deprived. Before the pandemic, the organization distributed 450 baskets per week. It now gives out 1,100 every Thursday.
The organization therefore wants to expand its premises in Limoilou, but has been looking for temporary premises for months while the work is being carried out. La Bouchée Généreux even made a media appearance to ask for the keys to the old Colisée.
Read the article “Food bank asks for keys to Coliseum”
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
La Bouchée Généreux will move to the Fleur de Lys shopping center in October. The organization will stay there for three years, which is the time it takes to rebuild its current premises.
Real estate developer William Trudel, hearing the assistant director of La Bouchée Généreux on the radio this winter, decided to take matters into his own hands. He had the idea of making the former Sears store garage located in the Fleur de Lys shopping centre, where the Trudel group is currently carrying out the largest construction project in the capital, accessible to the organisation.
The community sector must work with the private sector, and the private sector must work with the community sector.
William Trudel, founding president and CEO of Trudel, at a press conference on Tuesday
The company will renovate its building and charge cost. The Quebec government and the city are injecting $236,000 to pay for the relocation costs and the redevelopment of the former Sears garage. Trudel will also charge the organization rent “below market price.”
“It’s almost a palace here for us,” said La Bouchée Généreux’s general manager, Pierre Gravel.
These temporary premises, larger than those currently used by the organization, will allow the 1,100 families who come each week to pick up their baskets to wait inside. Currently, lines are growing outside, even in freezing winter weather.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Before the pandemic, La Bouchée Généreux distributed 450 baskets per week. It now gives 1,100 every Thursday.
La Bouchée Généreux will move to the Fleur de Lys shopping centre in October. The organisation will stay there for three years, the time it takes to rebuild its current premises. Mr. Gravel recently estimated that the work would cost $7 million, which Trudel will once again carry out “at cost”. The new building will also allow beneficiaries to wait for their basket in a warm place.
It took the organization months to find temporary premises. “There are a lot of people who don’t want a food bank in their premises. Let’s say we rent the first floor and there are offices on the second floor, so the people in the offices don’t want a food bank downstairs. They don’t want to live with the poor for a day,” complained Marie-Pier Gravel, assistant director and Pierre’s daughter, this winter.