Easter brunch sells out in a flash

Apr 08, 2020

When the Caremongering Sharbot Lake Facebook page was put up three weeks ago by Amrit Kaillon, it started to pull together a group of people with a common goal of helping people who are self isolating or unable to access what they need for any reason, while at the same time providing opportunities for local businesses to maintain sales.

The effort was successful and then the idea of a virtual Easter brunch came up. The concept was that people could share a meal together, while staying in their own homes. In order to keep the cost down, Mike McKenzie of Seed to Sausage stepped forward to use his buying power to purchase the materials for a pork roast meal and offered to cover the cost for his crew to cook the meal. Other producers offered up some extras, and a brunch for four for $20, to be picked up or delivered for free using the Caremongering Sharbot Lake network and Frontenac Transportation Services, was organised.

When the sales started online, people stepped forward, purchasing meals for themselves and extra meals for friends in need.

“Mike McKenzie was originally planning to cook one hundred 4-person meals, but because of the response, that went up to two hundred,” said Amrit Kaillon.

In 72 hours, not only were 90 meals paid for, another 110 were purchased by sponsors.

“Some teachers ordered meals for the families of some of their students, some cottagers who aren’t even here purchased meals and asked us to find people who could use them. It has been quite overwhelming,” she said, “we are still getting 5-10 calls a day. We have even started collecting money for future projects.

The meals will be picked up or delivered on Saturday, (April 11) and a Zoom meeting is being organised for people to gather on Easter Sunday. Details will be posted at the Caremongering Sharbot Lake Facebook site.