Max Pahtayken
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Daily Herald
Prince Albert’s Embassy Church Reach Out group continues to feed the downtown community’s vulnerable and individuals experiencing homelessness on Sunday afternoon, Sep. 20.
The Reach Out ministry of the Embassy is made up of around seven local church goers, who come together to make sandwiches, soup, and snacks, to service and provide a helping hand to the City’s most vulnerable.
“At first, it was just because it’s hard to see people and know that they were hungry, and to know that there weren’t really a lot of places for them to go on a Sunday, and have something to eat,” said Embassy Church member Theresa Carriere, who volunteers with Reach Out with her husband.
Carriere said that the initiative began four years ago, in 2022, with her husband and another man from the Embassy simply giving sandwiches out on the riverbank after noticing a few people experiencing homelessness.
“When they started four years ago, what they noticed first was that there were people that were hungry,” Carriere said. “Just as Christians, seeing people hungry, the Lord said to feed those that are hungry, give them water, and that’s what we do. Just to know that another human being, and to see them suffering, it’s hard to see people in those conditions.”
She said that the City began having some meetings about the homelessness crisis in Prince Albert, and from that conversation, rector David Butorac rom St. Alban’s Anglican Cathedral said that he wanted to have a soup kitchen in the community. That fall, St. Alban’s offered their kitchen to Reach Out to open a soup kitchen to serve warm meals to the displaced during the winter months.
“Every other Sunday, seven or eight of us would make big pots of soup or sandwiches, bring sweets and coffee because we knew they would be cold, it was basically a place to warm up and eat,” Carriere recalled.
Reach Out also made sandwiches and brought them to the riverbank in the summertime, along with water bottles and frozen treats. Carriere said that they make about 90 to 100 sandwiches, and include cookies made by the church and snack donations from Starbucks.
“We just started doing that, and we kept doing it, and it just never ended,” Carriere said. “People are so used to us, and they know, even four years later, we’re going to be there.”
Carriere also shared that aside from motivation from her faith to help those in need, herself and her husband understand the effect of addictions like alcohol and drugs.
She shared that her husband was addicted to alcohol and drugs in his life, and that she has many within her family who continue to suffer from addictions.
“I know what addictions can do, but what I’ve noticed is that it’s addictions but there’s also a lot of mental health issues, and sometimes it’s both,” Carriere said. “We don’t know if it’s what alcohol and drugs have caused, mental health, or sometimes people just have mental health issues and they have nowhere to go.”
Carriere also said one of the other things that herself, her husband, and another church member who is a recovering meth addict, make an effort to sit down and talk with those who come to eat. She says over the years, she has gotten to know a lot of people, and learn about them and who they are, and she asks questions like ‘How are you?’ and ‘How was your night?’
“It’s just so amazing just to be able to talk to people, because I think a lot of people might think just because they look poor, and they’re in this situation, they look at them like it’s their fault or something like that, and they say, ‘Get your life together,’” Carriere explained. “It’s different when you actually sit down and talk to people, find out their story, and not only that, but how they are doing.”
Carriere said that Reach Out sometimes gives out hygiene products and winter blankets, and accepts donations through the church to be distributed to the displaced and vulnerable. The ministry continues to serve the community every two weeks on Saturdays, at 2p.m. either at the riverbank or at St. Alban’s, with First Baptist Church also serving meals every other Sunday.
“That’s why we do it, just to be loving and they’re people of worth, and they have value, and that’s really the point,” Carriere said.
“I want people to know that these people are people of worth, and we should listen to their stories, and not judge people. A lot of these people, they’re just going through hard times too.”
