Volunteers who run at meal program out of the Kamloops United Church on St. Paul Street have had to move to the streets so they can keep operating after last week’s fire.

PIT Stop program coordinator Valentine Uwakwe says last Tuesday’s electrical fire which damaged the roof of the United Church has left his group without access to a kitchen.

Speaking on NL Newsday, he says its why they took to the streets so the roughly 250 people who access the program still have a place where they can get a meal on Sundays.

“We started last Sunday which was amazing. We fed about 200 people through a food truck provided by the United Steelworkers,” Uwakwe said. “It continues like that every Sunday behind the church at the YMCA parking lot because that’s where we’ll be staying for now.”

He says the meal program’s former coordinator suggested that they reach out to the United Steelworkers, who are one of several groups that volunteer their time, and ask if the trailer was available.

“It was really timely because we needed something like that to manage PIT Stop,” he said. “Luckily, they were available and ready to help and so they jumped on and we appreciated that.”

Uwakwe says while the meal program is expected to go back to the United Church once repairs are completed, its not clear when that might be.

“I don’t really have a sense of that because no one can really tell until the due diligence has been done. We just have to in our own way manage our own end just to make sure that we have a sustainable continuity of the program pending when we have access to the kitchen again.”

He also told Radio NL it was important to keep the meal program going so that people who depend on it aren’t left scrambling in the interim.

“Because we love them and many of them are really struggling at the moment. We know how important consistency in food support or any kind of support is to someone who is struggling, so we don’t want anyone to relapse, just because of what happened.”

Uwakwe says people who want to make a donation can do so by emailing here.