The Kamloops Community Meal Train is shutting down after a five-year run of delivering meals to the homeless and hungry. Glenn Hilke is seen here passing out food to a group of men in North Kamloops.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

A volunteer-run food service for homeless people in Kamloops is coming to an end after nearly five years.

Led by local poverty advocate Glenn Hilke, the Kamloops Community Meal Train has been doling out food from the back of vehicles since the COVID-19 pandemic. Volunteers will deliver to homeless camps, to people huddled in alleys, motels and RVs.

"We started the Meal Train based on COVID restrictions, and the place was a ghost town except for the homeless," Hilke said.

He and other volunteers continued for 1,000 consecutive days, Hilke said, handing out food, clothing and sleeping bags to homeless people around Kamloops. Though they eased operations to only periodic deliveries for two years, Hilke said they started running daily again this past August.

A combination of burnout and frustration with the hurdles of getting services to people who are facing homelessness or hunger has now led volunteers to shutdown the Meal Train. Now that it's run its course, Hilke said it's time for others to take the reins in addressing food insecurity on the streets, including other more established non-profits in Kamloops.

"Not only is the infrastructure there, the food is there," he said.

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The shutdown will align with the opening of a new homeless shelter on the North Shore at the former Butler RV dealership, now delayed a month to the end of January.

On a December afternoon, Hilke drove around North Kamloops looking for people who may appear homeless — his Toyota Prius filled to the brim with sandwiches, snacks, water and hot soup.

He knows the regular hangouts. Patrolling alleys, parking lots and even a Ministry of Social Development office, he simply asks if anyone's hungry and offers a meal. Sometimes there are groups, sometimes it's a single person having a cigarette behind a store.

One woman kindly refused a meal when he asked from the driver's seat as she sat behind the North Kamloops Safeway.

"I don't know whether she is in need or not," Hilke said as he rolled the window up and drove off. "I've never had anybody say to me over the years, 'fuck off, what, do you think I'm homeless?'"

It was social assistance week and Hilke said there are generally fewer people on the streets or in camps at that time. They tend to "disperse" on cheque day, he said.

One of the first two groups of the afternoon were in a Tranquille Road alley and the other behind the Fortune Shopping Centre. Faces lit up as he rolled down his window and asked if anyone is hungry.

"He's been great from the start. Sometimes he has his days, but he still manages to keep himself together and treat everyone fairly," one woman said, huddled under a blanket as another man gathered food from her.

The 20-year-old mother wouldn't provide her name for publication, but she said she's been on and off the streets for a year-and-a-half. Shivering, she was warmed by the soup from the back of Hilke's Prius. She expected she and many others would struggle to find regular meals without the Meal Train deliveries, worried that food simply "wouldn't be an option out here."

Few of those asked refused meals. Some suggested other areas just blocks away where they knew people were outside and hungry.

From the back of his Toyota Prius, Hilke serves soup, sandwiches, snacks and water at the Ministry of Social Development offices on Dec. 20, 2024.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

On a drive through the Northills Mall parking lot timed up with a couple who said they were kicked out of a store before they could buy groceries.

"We were kicked out because of profiling. They thought we were stealing," the woman said. "It's so hard."

Hilke knew them both, having worked with them several times over the years. The man, Daniel, was elated as he told Hilke he had recently moved into a supportive housing facility. They collected their sandwiches and snacks before the train continued rolling.

Hilke hadn't seen Daniel for months and said he looked much healthier than he ever had before. There were times he doubted Daniel would improve at all, while he was surprised he made it through the supportive housing waitlists. The woman, however, was living in a camp by the river.

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The Meal Train is "one of many band-aids" in the city, in lieu of established so-called wrap-around services for the homeless community, Hilke said. It's an interim solution that's run its course, but he said its small service has been key for survival and the organization struggled with the decision to shut it down.

Hilke was "shocked" Daniel had a roof over his head, who went on to tell Hilke he had infections that were finally improving after getting inside.

"When I look at Daniel, who is now in Spero House and looks amazing, I say we helped keep Daniel alive for the last few years in the hopes there would be a day he would realize, 'I've got to get off the streets,'" Hilke said.

Hilke and other volunteers restarted the Meal Train after The Loop closed this past summer, but it was an initiative that started in March 2020 as pandemic lockdowns forced temporary closures.

It evolved into The Loop, a homeless drop-in and soup kitchen at 405 Tranquille Road. The controversial service was a regular hangout for people who were hungry or homeless, an ad hoc shelter on the coldest winter nights, and an unsightly hub for social disorder to the neighbouring business community. They faced adversarial challenges with the City and businesses until the property was scooped up by local realtor Brendan Shaw and subsequently shuttered in August.

Most of the Meal Train's supplies come from a Food Bank program that distributes donations from local grocery stores. Financial donations are, for the most part, from individual donors in Kamloops and they tend to range from $20 to $500, Hilke said.

A small group of dedicated volunteers keep it running, which Hilke said are mostly seniors. Depending on the day, they'll typically deliver in North Kamloops, downtown or Valleyview.

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Hilke suggested he and at least some volunteers will continue serving the city's homeless in some way, but it's not clear what form that will take. It's unsurprising given Hilke's relentless efforts to drum up new social service initiatives, whether it's a shelter, a soup kitchen or a roving meal service.

Until then, he suggested larger organizations and the City should take on the gap left by the halted Meal Train.

"When we started talking about (closing), volunteers would say 'that's not going to happen,'" Hilke said. "But we decided we have to make this decision, and it's a hard one to make obviously because of it's impact."

Hilke hinted at a coming announcement from the volunteer-run group ahead of a December ride-along. Once on the road, he revealed that the Meal Train would be shutting down.

In its five-year run, the Meal Train delivered to not only camps and motels, but they also went to the city-run summertime day space downtown and to shelters that could use surplus food, most often Out of the Cold.

When it started, local soup kitchen the Pit Stop had closed due to COVID as did the Mustard Seed. Most volunteers were seniors, who were particularly at-risk of the virus, so they were careful of working with the public at the time. The Pit Stop has long since restarted, serving Sunday afternoon meals, while the Mustard Seed shut its day space down last year.

Mike Kane was quick to take the offer as Hilke stopped him along Tranquille Road.

(LEVI LANDRY / iNFOnews.ca)

Hilke has criticized the lack of a shelter on the North Shore since 2021. Though it's temporary, the Butler RV 44-bed shelter on Tranquille Road will help address the need for the North Kamloops homeless community.

Hungry patrons weren't aware of the impending closure, but one man along Tranquille Road didn't parse words when he was asked what losing the Meal Train would mean to him.

"A lot of us probably wouldn't make it through the winter or there would be a lot more crime," Mike Kane said. "What are you going to do if you're starving or your girlfriend is starving? You're going to start stealing. Not that we want to, but what choice do you have?"

He said he was a firefighter, but a series of misfortunes landed him on the streets and he hasn't been able to recover. Though it's not a guaranteed meal as patrons have to be lucky enough to be around when the Meal Train is on patrol, Kane said the chance encounters are a blessing to many.

"There should be more people like him. The City should be thanking (Hilke) not fining him," he said.

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