As residents continue to grapple with the string of crimes in Nanaimo, some are hoping to bring people together.
On Saturday in Maffeo Sutton Park, organizers of a potluck hope residents will attend and enjoy, regardless of whether they are housed or not.
Kim Goldberg, one of the organizers of the potluck, says if you don’t have food to contribute, that’s fine, and encourages you to come anyways.
“Those of us who do have food will do our best to feed everybody. Just trying to get people connected in the wake of the violence that has happened recently with the local business owner being shot while trying to retrieve stolen property,” says Goldberg. “That’s ended up being a rather volatile situation, people are angry. We don’t want to see our community start to go down a wrong road in response to anger, or violence, or fear. We want to bring people together, and food is a great way to do that.”
She says they currently don’t know what they’re going to be serving, as it’ll all depends on the ingredients brought to the potluck. However, they do know at least one person will be bringing soup.
“Soups are great, you can hand them out and feed everybody. [But] we don’t know yet, it’s very spontaneous. Another friend of mine and myself were just talking, we live or work right down town and this affects us very much. We want to do something to bring the community together.”
The potluck will be from 1pm to 3pm, and organizers will be using the picnic tables to distribute food.
Goldberg is a poet and writer, and wrote a book of poems in 2009 regarding Nanaimo’s homelessness situation called ‘Red Zone.’
