Durham Outlook For The Needy (DOFN) has opened at a new location at 227 Simcoe in Oshawa.
“Covid 19 was bad news, and it was good news for Durham Outlook – after purchasing the land at 227 Simcoe in 2014 for our new location, and then years of delayed construction to remediate the contaminated site, and suffering significantly depleted funds, the bad news of the world shut-down due to the pandemic forced our doors of service to the food-insecure in our community to close,” said a DOF statement.
But the good news was that it allowed us to sell our former building. Using the funds generated from this sale, the construction of the new building was finally able to be brought to completion,” it said on their news release.
Durham Outlook reopened on Thursday, March 10 for dinner service.
DOFN said its Board of Directors, staff and especially the fundraising committee will be eternally grateful to all members and levels of our community who have contributed to our building fund over these past years to bring us finally to this moment of hope and promise.
For over 30 years, Durham Outlook’s Kitchen has served dinner meals all year round to members of our community who find themselves in circumstances of food insecurity, and the time it has taken to achieve our long-term goal of a new building has been disheartening to many. With gratitude and joy, we are now poised to resume the service to the community envisioned by the founding members. While debt and expenses continue, we now have a facility that is ready to serve, it said.
Durham Outlook (DOFN) says it operates the only dinner services of its kind in the Durham Region. For over 30 years, DOFN has supported the community through the kitchen by providing a meal to any person who walks though the doors. So far, 1.4 million meals have been served at the kitchen, with an average of 200 meals a day, to some of the community’s most vulnerable people – including senior citizens, families with small children, at-risk youth, people with disabilities, and those who are homeless.