The Bunker Youth Ministry's Industrial Eats food trailer is operating again for the summer season, an endeavour that has morphed into much more than dreamed.
Executive Director of the Bunker, Kevin Hildebrand says what started as a pulled pork lunch from the food trailer each Thursday to generate revenue for the ministry, has grown to include catering as well.
"We do so much catering now for businesses" explained Hildebrand. "We're doing staff appreciations, customer appreciations, we do events. We were at the Back 40, we're going to be at Cripple Creek, Altona Drag Races, and the Winkler Harvest Festival this year. Every year it continues to grow. In July and August, we set up every at Integrity Parts every Wednesday in the industrial park."
When they started the food trailer, Hildebrand said a big reason was to generate revenue for the ministry and the programs and services they run. He said the food trailer has been very successful in doing that. If it were not for the revenue brought in by the food trailer, there have been times they would have had to "shut their doors."
The food trailer concept will soon be expanded, possibly by the end of this year, to include a sit-down smoke-style BBQ restaurant.
Hildebrand says guiding their mission statement for the restaurant, is to provide a place of meaningful employment to enable the people working there to move onto a more positive place in life.
"Now we want to take that concept (food trailer) and ramp it up, and instead of just having three students during the summer, we want to hire like 30 people during the year, use it as a place that we can pay them well so they can afford to live."
Some preliminary work has begun inside the space the restaurant will occupy, the former location of Central Station, and the Winkler Food Cupboard.
Hildebrand says the hope is to open the restaurant late this fall or in early winter, however, that will be dependent on the finances and trades all coming together.
"In terms of building this project, we've had businesses already that have stepped forward and donated money to us, or donated product to us, or Labour, and it's been super good," exclaimed Hildebrand. "We want people in the community to be able to walk into this restaurant and see people working there and say, 'Hey, I had a part in providing this person with some employment.' 'The money that I donated to this project helped them hire this woman who's helping her family.'"
Hildebrand says it's not just about dining at the restaurant for a great time and a great experience. He says they want you to be able to look at the people working there and say, "I had a part in changing their life."
Every Thursday at The Bunker, lunch is served from the Industrial Eats food Trailer from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm.
The menu consists of pulled pork, homemade baked beans, coleslaw, potato and cheese perogies, blueberry perogies, coleslaw, and potatoes which they turn into fries.
Last month, The Bunker received a $41,000 Building Sustainable Communities grant for upgrades to their facility.
- with files from Daemon Parent and Ronny Guenther -