How Plenty of Plates Helps

Plenty of Plates is a volunteer-driven initiative by A Better Life Foundation (ABLF) that uses food as a bridge for connection and dignity. Since 2017, the program has brought together hundreds of volunteer teams to cook and serve restaurant-style meals for residents of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES), a community deeply affected by poverty, isolation, and food insecurity.

Hosted out of the Save On Meats diner, each Plenty of Plates event transforms the space into a welcoming dining room where guests can sit down, share a meal, and experience the warmth of genuine human connection. Guided by ABLF chefs and facilitators, volunteers prepare, plate, and serve a freshly made meal while connecting directly with guests across the diner’s tables.

Volunteer teams contribute a monetary donation which funds the evening’s three-course meal and also supports ABLF’s daily meal program, which provides roughly 1,500 additional meals to those in need on the DTES. 

Giffen’s Volunteer Night

On November 13th, ten individuals from the Giffen and RBC teams came together in collaboration to participate in a Plenty of Plates evening, joining ABLF chefs and facilitators to cook and serve dinner to residents of the DTES. The team spent the evening preparing each course from scratch, greeting guests, and serving meals with warmth and care.

“The spectrum of people in the DTES is so much broader than I thought,” shared Giffen’s Project Manager, Chirag Patel. “The work ABLF does impacts people positively and brings so much joy to everyone. It showed me that any effort, even something small, can have a huge impact.”

Luis Uribe, Mechanical Designer at Giffen, shared that he “learned that [the DTES]  is a community with very kind and gentle people, and that there are many things we can do to help them feel a little better and give them the chance to have a good moment and dignity. Our society often tries to make them invisible, and we become desensitized to human pain.” Luis expressed that this experience with ABLF made the team more aware of that.

For many, it was a humbling reminder of the importance of community connection and the everyday impact of organizations like ABLF.

The Lasting Impact

Beyond the meal served that night, each Plenty of Plates event helps sustain ABLF’s daily meal program, ensuring thousands of nutritious meals continue reaching residents of the DTES throughout the year. During Giffen and RBC’s volunteer night, they were able to provide an additional 1,800 meals at dinner beyond the daily meal program. 

The Giffen team was honoured to take part in an initiative that uplifts and gives dignity to those most in need in our community.

“All people matter. We all have our stress in life, but when we have regular employment with an income that can cover more than our basic needs, it provides a foundation for stability that we often take for granted. Initiatives like this are a reminder that a position of privilege is a call to connect with and support one another.” – Andrew Ablenas, Director, Project Delivery

“Giving back what we can is important and beneficial for the whole community, especially the DTES where there is a lasting impact of colonialism, displacement, and systemic inequities by the Canadian Government, particularly of Indigenous Peoples, Chinese, and underprivileged peoples. One meal or one night doesn’t seem like a lot to fight back systemic inequities, but if we can make one person smile, then we’re at least doing something right.” – Celeste Evans, Jr. Mechanical Engineer

“My heart is always full when I spend time in the community. It reinforces that it does take a community to support each other.” – Joel Giffen, Owner

“It made me think about the things I have and don’t always appreciate, because I assume they will always be there. I also realized that the rush of daily life can make you blind to other people’s struggles, and it’s easy not to stop and think about how you could find time to help the community.” – Luis Uribe, Mechanical Designer

To learn more about A Better Life Foundation and the Plenty of Plates program, visit https://www.abetterlifefoundation.ca/get-involved/plenty-of-plates-team-building-vancouver/.