Union Gospel Mission to serve 3,000 Easter meals to those in need
This Easter, the Union Gospel Mission will be serving 3,000 meals to those in need.
UGM will be cooking up 2,200 lbs of ham, 900 lbs of scalloped potatoes, 270 litres of pineapple sauce, 750 lbs of mixed vegetables, 600 apple pies, 400 litres of ice cream, and 300 buttered buns.
See also
The meal is seen as a gesture of kindness to Mike Gosling.
The 55-year-old was homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol before finding the UGM Mission Outreach Workers, and enrolling in the organization’s recovery program.
“I feel I owe society for giving me the way out,” Mike says. “At UGM’s meal, (the homeless) get to feel and experience love and hope of another life, there is more than just survival. UGM picked me up and gave me my life back. If I hadn’t gone into UGM I don’t think I’d be alive today,” he said in a release.
Gosling has been sober for eight years and will be attending UGM’s Easter Meal to share his story.
UGM ‘needed more than ever this Easter’
With the latest Metro Vancouver Homeless Count reporting a 30 % increase in homelessness since 2014, UGM’s president Bill Mollard says the UGM is “needed more than ever this Easter.”
“We’ll welcome thousands this weekend and hope to inspire more men and women, just like Mike, toward a different life,” he said.
In total, the Metro Vancouver Homeless Count identified 3,605 people in the region as homeless.