'We don’t give up on people': Windsor mobile soup kitchen moving indoors

A mobile soup kitchen in downtown Windsor is moving indoors.

The Soup Shack is moving into 636 Goyeau Street, after the building owner has donated the space to Feeding Windsor-Essex.

“We want to do something that’s not being done,” director Roger Fordham said Monday during a tour of their new space.

“The vision is to have a kitchen area back here, a fair amount of seating up here, TVs on the wall, bathrooms that people can use,” he said.

The space was donated by a business owner who wishes to remain anonymous, according to Fordham.

“As long as there’s need, we’ll be out there,” Fordham said. “It’s not always easy but it’s the right thing to do.”

Since it launched two years ago, the Soup Shack mobile soup kitchen has been forced to relocate three times.Soup Shack in Windsor, Ont., on Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2023. (Chris Campbell/CTV News Windsor)

Twice from church parking lots because of security concerns and a third time now that the city is building an ice rink out front of City Hall.

The Soup Shack had been parked between City Hall and All Saints Church.

No matter where they go, Fordham said people in need with find them as the need continues to grow.

“We probably (feed) about 75 or 80 people that are homeless, but then we get seniors that come down, we get single moms with their kids that come down to get soup, and there's nobody here that would turn them away,” said Fordham. “Are they homeless? No. But are they hungry? Yes.”

Renovations are well underway, and Fordham hopes to be operational inside by the end of the year.

Between then and now, the mobile soup kitchen will continue to operate seven days a week, from seven to nine o’clock at night in the parking lot.