This is part of a year-long ‘Love for Local’ series called NB365: portraits of New Brunswick entrepreneurs, businesses and organizations. Huddle is a media partner with Love for Local. Today, we hear from Adam O’Brien from Medavie Community Kitchen, in Moncton

The Medavie Community Kitchen is a fully equipped, professional teaching kitchen. We offer a variety of free classes focused on cooking nutritious meals. No cooking skills are required to join.

Not everyone has access to such facilities and it’s quite something to bring so many different people together around the goal of learning how to cook and enjoy the food they prepare.

The kitchen is a community space and, as such, we are very involved in the community. We’re always looking to be even more involved. We create partnerships on the use of the space, organize bake sales, special events, and more.

It’s about making a difference in our area. We also make sure to offer varied and accessible programming to everyone. We’re here to work with people, so we make sure nothing is expensive and we even offer financial assistance. Our job is to remove barriers to entry so people can benefit from what we do.

We all experienced this storm but from different boats. Not everyone felt the same impacts and I think it’s important to consider this when it comes to community endeavours such as the kitchen: if your boat is afloat, you need to be helping the rafters.

Local community organizations make a huge difference simply by doing what they were created for. We all answer a need in the community, oftentimes a very basic need like care and food, and every team member takes this mission on because if we don’t do it, who will?

It’s much more than an organization, it’s a group of dedicated people who care for their neighbours and friends. Local organizations fill the blanks in the communities they serve and that’s how local wins every time.