
New Kitchen Appliances at Hope Blooms
Increased food storage and production means North End families have greater access and more choice of nutritious and culturally appropriate food.
With funding from the first round of community investment through the United Way Halifax Neighbourhood Kitchen Fund, local youth social enterprise organization Hope Blooms was able to purchase a brand-new stand-up freezer and a commercial mixer for their kitchen facility.
Hope Blooms, located in Halifax’s North End, brings people of diverse backgrounds and cultures together through innovative agricultural and culinary programs. Their programs are based on experiential learning and their emphasis on social entrepreneurship creates long-term impact – the kind that carries on through generations.
In the grand scheme of things, you might wonder how a freezer and a commercial mixer can have a big impact. Well, that freezer allows Hope Blooms to stock up on more food like meat, which they can then distribute to families in their weekly food boxes. And that commercial mixer means they are big-batch baking like they’ve never been able to do before! All kinds of breads, pastries, and sweet treats from diverse cultures and ethnicities – Syrian, Somali, Mexican – are now showing up in families’ weekly food boxes as well.
Both investments are increasing access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food in Halifax’s North End. In addition to running their youth social enterprise ventures and culinary programs, Hope Blooms has just introduced a new program called Food Without Borders for a diverse group of local moms and will soon be starting an official community farmers market where all the food is subsidized and market vendors – both young and not-so-young – will be able to sell their goods.