Food Ministries
Feeding hearts and bellies is core to our identity as a caring community.
From community meals to growing vegetables to share to making sandwiches for the unhoused of our city, we are committed to these food ministries.
Growing produce for our neighbours
We partner with Urban Seedling and the West Island Mission to grow beautiful produce for our West Island neighbours experiencing food insecurity.
Urban Seedling plants the veggies, our volunteers (as part of our Vacation Creation Camp) water and care for the veggies, and teams from the West Island Mission come to harvest every few weeks.
Over the 2023 season, our vegetable garden offered up 6 harvests and the 2024 season appears to be on track to do the same!
2025-2026 dates (Fridays)
October 17
November 28
January 16
April 17
May 15
Supper Together
We host community meals several times per year with the simple goal of bringing neighbours together for supper. It’s an invitation to pay as you can, help as you're able—and enjoy the simple pleasure of eating together in community.
We gratefully partner with the West Island Mission, Corbeille de pain and Provigo Le Marché Kirkland, along with other West Island community organizations, to make the meal together and share it with whomever comes, usually sending people home with leftovers to enjoy.
We post a signup form a few weeks before each supper so that anyone can offer to pitch in, and so that we know about how many people we should be cooking for! Look for that form on our What’s Happening page.
Interested in welcoming, cooking, shopping? Get in touch to let us know how you’d like to help: familiesandyouth@cedarparkunited.org.
Community Connections
Since December 2023, we’ve been gathering nearly every month to eat together and make a difference for our neighbours together. We call this Community Connections and it’s as simple as it is meaningful.
We enjoy a pay-as-you-can light lunch together before turning our lunch tables into a sandwich-making line— with food donated by Provigo Le Marché Kirkland and folks from the Cedar Park United community. We then make about 400 sandwiches that are delivered to our partners at Bread and Beyond for shelters for unhoused people in downtown Montreal.
We’ve become known for the colourful “love notes” that our community creates to make each sandwich special. Anyone and everyone is welcome to decorate them and bring them to the church building (see template below).
Community Connections is for all ages and is a wonderful time and place for getting back to the essentials of building community and caring for those beyond our walls, too.
We post a signup form a few weeks before each Community Connections so that anyone can offer to pitch in, and so that we know about how many folks to expect. Look for that form on our What’s Happening page.
2025-2026 dates (Wednesdays)
August 6
September 3
October 1
November 5
December 3
January 7
February 4
March 4
April 1
May 6
June 3
“Your support —showing up, making sandwiches, decorating bags, collecting essential items and doing it all with such commitment and kindness—is showing us the incredible gift that is community.
Your work doesn’t just provide food and essential items for the shelters, but a reminder that people care.
We’re extremely grateful for your partnership.”
Comfort Pantry
In response to the increasing difficult life situations that many are facing, we created a Comfort Pantry in the hallway near the Comfort Food Freezer.
Anyone is welcome to take from the shelves and anyone is welcome to fill the shelves. We love seeing how our partners and those who use our space take the initiative to do so!
Here's what we try to keep the shelves stocked with:
Peanut butter/jam
Single-serving snacks (apple sauce, granola bars, juice boxes, crackers, etc.)
Pasta/sauce/canned tomatoes/rice/Kraft dinner
Breakfast cereal/shelf-stable milk
Cans of soup and crackers
Period products (pads, tampons, etc.)
During the summer, you can access the Comfort Pantry on Wednesdays 9 - 12 (except for July 16).
Comfort Food Freezer
You can find this freezer between the two sets of doors of the church building. It’s there for anyone who needs a meal or a muffin, for whatever reason, and to ensure that CPU can provide nutritious meals to a number of older members who live alone, and to families who could use some food support.
You can contribute clearly labelled and dated, home-cooked, frozen meals in portions for 1, or for a family. You can take a meal when you need one.
The freezer is accessible on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM to noon. and on Sundays from 9:30 to 10 AM and after worship, from 11:15 to noon.