Mennonite school's annual dinner feeding over 1,200 people

A high school in Winnipeg is offering free meals to its community to thank them for their support.

Alexis Dirks and Krista Neustaedter Barg from Westgate Mennonite Collegiate are preparing their third annual Pick Up, Dine, and Donate. The school is offering its community bags of four meals that include Mennonite staples such as perogies and farmer sausage. The school's kitchen staff are volunteering hours, making homemade oat squares, a popular Westgate snack.

"In the past two years, we have invited our community into our school building and we have had a big meal in the gym," Neustaedter Barg says.

(Supplied)

This year, the school is serving its free meals to go instead of hosting a large dinner in their gym.

The dinner is a thank you to its donors as well as a way to raise awareness for their capital campaign to pay for a major renovation from 2017. 

While they hope to raise funds, the pair says the main goal of the event is to foster their community.

"We can still feel together. We are all going to be eating the same thing at 350 different homes across the city. I feel that even the fact that so many people have responded, our real goal of keeping (the capital campaign) at the forefront of people's minds has been achieved."

Neustaedter Barg says the idea came to the school three years ago as they thought about events that happened in Winnipeg almost fifty years ago. 

"In the 70s, we had such a fundraiser. We did it in church basements."

While 2020 looks different than the 1970s, the organizers say their goal of reaching the community of alumni and supporters is being achieved. Dirks says in 2019, the school prepared for 550 people. In 2020, 300 meal kits have been ordered so far, the equivalent of 1,200 meals.

"Some families want a few, and some are delivering to their grandparents or people they know."

The school's original goal was to serve 250 kits, but now they estimate they will give out close to 350 kits, or 1,400 meals. The school itself has close to 300 students. 

Inside the reusable bag, the pair says there is a list of community members and vendors who are helping them with the event.

There is a card, each one hand-decorated by students, with a prayer for the meal.