The soup kitchen at the Victorious Living Centre in Owen Sound has been closed.
Pastor Randy Kennedy says there were a number of health regulations they needed to comply with in order to stay open.
They included getting another sink in the kitchen, and having all food bought at the grocery store and prepared at the kitchen.
Kennedy says financially, this isn’t something that is possible for the Victorious Living Centre to do.
Kennedy says he doesn’t disagree with the health guidelines as they are there to protect people, but he says running a bigger centre and providing these services takes money.
He says he’s disappointed they haven’t received government funding from any level to help with the cost of running the soup kitchen.
Kennedy says the city of Owen Sound and Grey County both spend considerable amounts of money in other ways, and he says while those programs and services have their merits, the financial support his centre needs is comparably much less.
He says they have put a budget together and are talking with some other organizations in the community about possible support to be able to open the soup kitchen again in the future.
Kennedy estimates it would take 50 thousand dollars a year to run.
He says that if another group were to open a similar centre, they would certainly support that as well.
Before closing, the soup kitchen would typically feed anywhere from 5 to 80 people for lunch per day, and another 8 to 15 on average for dinner.
