MyCityCare is gearing up for an expansion of its new location with a Community Kitchen project, which is part of a larger renovation designed to strengthen food security and community connection.
Thanks to funding from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ Humanitarian Fund, the project received a boost of $76,750.
The project will support community groups, including local families and youth through MyCityCare programs and in partnership with other local nonprofit organizations.
The kitchen will serve as a shared resource for food preparation, education, collaboration and distribution — ensuring dignified, barrier-free access to nutritious food.
“This investment allows us to come alongside people in a practical and meaningful way,” says Executive Director Jen Tribble. “Food is more than a basic need — it’s a way to build community, restore dignity and ensure no one feels forgotten.”
According to Tribble, the grant will also make it possible for MyCityCare to explore expanding its Healthy Heroes school lunch program into Lethbridge schools for the 2026 school year and beyond.
Healthy Heroes was successfully piloted in Taber, Barnwell and Coaldale for the past few years.
“Every child deserves access to food. Healthy Heroes creates a system where students can participate and receive support in a way that feels normal, empowering and caring,” Tribble adds.
Since moving into the building, Tribble explains, MyCityCare has been slowly renovating parts of the facility. “We’ve been fortunate to secure a few grants to help get our new location up-and-running and into the vision we have for the place. We’ve done quite a bit of renovations already, and this was part of a larger scale reno we’ve been applying for. One of the things we’ve seen a need for is kitchen space.”
With the Healthy Heroes lunch program, fridges are put in schools and kids can access nutritional support throughout the day.
Tribble notes the program has gone very well, and a pilot program was held over the summer with two Lethbridge school libraries involved. “We’ve been kind of playing with the idea of doing that. One of the biggest barriers was having a Community Kitchen to be able to prepare lunches in. This is going to help meet that need.”
In the new location, Tribble notes, several other community groups and nonprofits are using the office space already. “This will also help benefit their programs. Our programs will be able to do workshops and different types of cooking classes or provide support to community groups that would like to do something like a workshop or a community workshop around food and nutrition. That space would be available for them to book. Our heart is to be able to come alongside, not just the community groups in our building, but invite more community groups in to take part and use the space.”
The initial funding request was $100,000, so the funding received is a large portion of what was needed to build the kitchen, Tribble adds. “We’re almost there.”
“We’ll probably continue to ask for additional funding for some of the things, as we get rolling. Since we had applied, there’s inflation and things have changed, so we’ll be looking at some supplementary costs, as we move forward,” says Tribble. “But for the most part, it’s going to cover almost the whole project.”
Tribble says the idea is to build a fully bookable space for other community groups to come in and utilize the space. “That’s absolutely what we want it to be used for. We would love it to be busy all the time.”
According to Tribble, the anticipated opening for the Community Kitchen is for the fall during the school launch in September.
