Good morning, Speaker. This past weekend, I was proud to work alongside a team of 70 volunteers at the Bridge Youth Resource Centre in Leamington to participate in an exciting fundraiser led by my friend who operates the Giving Spoon, a local non-profit charity. The event featured a wide array of fresh homemade soups donated by local families and organizations to raise funds and awareness for youth programs and access to attainable housing.

The weekend showcased an impressive lineup: 18 cauldrons each day of unique varieties of soup served by volunteers, myself included, to hundreds of people from our community who lined up to enjoy the fresh soup and fellowship while raising important funds for the Bridge Youth Resource Centre. In my non-scientific observation, I would say that the cream of potato and bacon was the most popular.

The Bridge Youth Resource Centre is an organization supporting youth, ages 14 to 24, through collaborative programming with multiple community partners to address education, job support, mental health and addiction, social inclusion and general life skills. The facility also supports youth experiencing homelessness or housing instability and actually partnered with Habitat for Humanity and researchers from the U of Windsor’s department of civil engineering and environmental engineering to design and build 3-D homes, the first printed in Canada.

Congratulations to my friends at the Bridge and the Giving Spoon for another great event.