Renovations for a new Commons community kitchen are well underway, according to Commons Member, Judith Roux.

At Tuesday’s monthly Commons Community Council meeting at the Gabriola Commons, Roux said invitations have been sent out to a number of potential kitchen users, and there are already about a dozen people interested in forming a Commons kitchen collective.

Roux stated that the group will meet as a cooperative management team to take over the efficient running of the kitchen.  “This can be quite a challenge with not enough people”, said Roux, “so the future is bright for the new community kitchen with the interest that this is generating”.

“This team will be looking at scheduling, collecting rentals to cover overhead costs, and obviously, cleanliness is a big thing”, Roux continued. “They are there to make sure that it is really a full community facility and making sure that there is a balance and a fairness in the way the spaces are shared and distributed”.

Now that the Gabriola Commons receives funding for the facility from the Nanaimo Community Foundation, Camp Miriam, an anonymous donor, and the Vancouver Foundation, the facility will be built very soon, said Roux.

Commons members made a trip to Nanaimo’s Zellers this month, to pick up some of the commercial kitchen tables and a large hood at “rock bottom prices”, said Roux.  “It was a major endeavour”, she continued, “as the hood was not screwed in to the wall, but welded”.  Therefore, she said, a team of six people took on the task of sawing the hood from the wall, with Commons members Robbie Huston and Patrick Roux managing it.  “It was an epic event”, Judith Roux said with a smile.

“More impressive than that”, replied Huston, “was that, because Patrick and I were in the ceiling cutting welds and things, the four women were moving the big pieces of stainless steel to the truck and the Zellers guys were just standing watching, amazed to see these women moving furniture”.

It was a good event, said Roux, and Gabriola Commons’ new community kitchen will benefit from it.