Thousands fed as Edmonton restaurant nears a year of free meals

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What began as a small initiative aimed at helping hungry people at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic 10 months ago has since dished outthousands of free meals.

"I thought, 'It will run for a month or two and we will all fight off [COVID-19] and we will be back to normal,'" said Varinder Bhullar, president of Green Scholars of Alberta, an Edmonton non-profit that teaches kids about their Punjabi and Gujarati cultural roots.

"I would have never thought that we would be still fighting [COVID-19]when we started."

InApril 2020,Bhullarapproached Dil-E-Punjab's owner,Imran Javaid, with the idea for the free meals. They knew each other through mutual friends.Bhullarhad relied on the restaurant to cater some of his businessevents.

Tucked into a strip mall in the Mill Woods neighbourhood of Crawford Plains, Dil-E-Punjab is now serving more than 100 free meals a day to anyone who asks. The meals are handed out seven days a week, between 6 and 7 p.m.

"Last month we gave 3,400-plus meals," Bhullar told CBC News.

All they ask is that people let them know they're coming, so they can make sure they have enough.

When they first started on April 10, 2020, they were handing out about 40 meals a day. Bhullar said media coverage and social media helped get the word out.

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"It was spreading to people that need it as well as spreading to people who want to help," Bhullar said.

"So this is not me and Imran doing it, this is the community who is doing it. This is a community project and we have become a bigger family now."

A.J. Mand,a regular at Dil-E-Punjab,says he was struck by the generosity one evening after seeing meals served toa van full of people.

"When you're in desperate times, people like these in the community really help others," Mand said. "Hopefully someday it'll be passed onto others."

'Touched my heart'

Bhullaris seeing that generosity come back. In January, he got a call from a woman who said she wanted to meet him at the restaurant.

Assuming she wanted a meal, he agreed. Whenshe arrived, instead of taking a plate, she handed him an envelope.

"She said, 'I was not working and I was coming every day,'" Bhullar recalled. "'Today I'm working. I want to pay that back.'

"So she handed me maybe not a lot of money but whatever she could do ... that touched my heart."

'Giving is a responsibility'

Community contributionsand some help from the Alberta governmenthave kept the kitchen going. Javaid doesn't make a profit from the meals.

The program will continue for as long as it can be kept going.

"I believe giving is a responsibility," Bhullar said. "It's not something we are doing above and beyond."