Question of Faith for B.C. Charities
The Union Gospel Mission has been feeding the hungry in the Downtown Eastside for 50 years, and demand is only growing.
It’s been a tough couple of years for charities across the Lower Mainland. But for some local organizations that have bucked the trend, the key to success is simple: belief in a higher power.
On a miserably rainy Thursday evening, two lines stretch out from the Union Gospel Mission (UGM) in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside: one heading east down Cordova Street, another going south down Princess Avenue. The Princess line is for the evening’s hot meal, preceded by a chapel service; the Cordova file is a genuine, old-school breadline. People step up to the window for a loaf of day-old Safeway bread, a bag full of fruits and veggies, and a choice of the day’s random grab bag of donations – baby food, bags of fruit chips, and lots and lots of cakes. One woman scores an entire frosted birthday special, while a nearby volunteer frets over the box of fruit chips: “We can’t give these away!”
Back in the UGM kitchen, volunteers are cooking up tonight’s special: breaded beef liver. Up-front shelter residents work the breadline window. One winds into a story of the old days, pre-UGM: “Used to get into these street fights in Toronto. There’d be like 30 Filipinos squaring off against you. One little guy comes bouncing up – boing, boing, boing – and delivers this roundhouse kick to my head. I come to with my heels going click, click, click on the pavement as my friends dragged me away. I got knocked out by this guy with the most perfect technique I’ve ever seen. I mean, I’d like to meet that guy.”
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