Community Cooking

brokers off-the-clock

Mortgage broker Carey Benvenuti has nailed the recipe for giving back to her community

BY LISA GORDON

COMMUNITY

Six years ago, Carey Benvenuti was building the interiors of high-end

hotels and restaurants in New York and Washington, D.C. Today, she’s constructing mortgage deals that put people in homes. And, when she’s not working as a team lead with Mortgage Architects in St. Catharines, Ont., Benvenuti is busy feeding hungry people in her community.

It all started in 2017 when she began volunteering on The Salvation Army mobile outreach trucks, which deliver hot meals to communities in need six days a week. She quickly realized there were gaps in what they could provide, and she set out to help.

“I found a certified kitchen, got a few girlfriends together, and got everybody to bring a pile of ingredients,” said Benvenuti. “Back then, we weighed the trays, and that first night we made about 450 pounds of food, which we donated to The Salvation Army.

“What I realized was that you get so much back when you give. We just felt like a million dollars afterward. That’s how ‘No One Goes Hungry’ was born. It’s my own grass roots initiative. I just gave it a name so we could create a Facebook page, and it’s just grown from there.”

Today, having prepared almost 200,000 meals, Benvenuti’s initiative is very well known in the Niagara community. With anywhere from 25 to 30 people joining her, the group cooks as much food as possible from an industrial kitchen generously donated by the Stamford Centre Volunteer Fire Association.

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COOKING

They also support two local high schools.

She now provides meals for 65 students each day and has helped create a pantry at one of the high schools, where students can pick up snacks and basic toiletry items.

In total, the team of volunteers helps up to 2,000 people each month. Not

surprisingly, the demand did not decline during COVID-19 lockdowns. Benvenuti partnered with a Mississauga organization called ‘Care for Cause.’ Together, they delivered 800 meals a week to people on the streets and in their homes. Still, the calls for help are only increasing.

“I have to be careful not to exhaust myself,” said Benvenuti. “I have a husband and four children, but I could cook every day and it would still not be enough help.”

Food insecurity continues to be a huge problem in the Niagara region, and Benvenuti has seen requests almost doubling.

“There isn’t a whole lot of industry in Niagara, so a lot of people work in the hospitality sector, which is just starting to gear up again,” she explained. “I see a lot more requests for help than we ever have in the past. With existing housing issues, a lot of families are living in

“

You make time for what is important to you, and the biggest gift of giving back is to yourself.

Above: Volunteers gather and prepare food to support people who need a meal.

motels, out of a bar fridge and a hot plate, maybe a microwave oven, and that is a predominant issue within the Niagara region.”

Benvenuti comes by her desire to help from her own personal experience.

“I moved out of the house at a very young age, and I was helped out by a family who really taught me the importance of giving back,” she said. “Helping other people became a core value for me at a very young age. I’ve always donated my time and money to give back, in whatever capacity I can.”

With no charitable status, and increasing costs due to inflation, Benvenuti is determined to continue expanding her efforts.

“It’s just not something I could ever give up. There are just too many people and organizations that depend on the food that we cook every month. We try to take some time off in the summer, but we’ve also committed to supporting the YWCA and YMCA shelters,” she said.

“A few people within the broker community have been very generous and I have a really good core group of volunteers that come out every month ‒ but all of the planning and execution is done by myself, including the shopping, planning, organization, menu planning and most of the delivery. It comes out to about an additional three to four days per month, which isn’t crazy.

“You make time for what is important to you, and the biggest gift of giving back is to yourself. I only operate on one speed, and that’s Mach 1000 per cent.”

This interview with Carey Benvenuti continues our series Brokers off the Clock. In every issue, we ask a mortgage broker to tell us what they like to do when they’re not behind a desk. Be it working with animals, travelling to exotic places or researching your family roots, we want to know how you unwind. Would you like to be profiled in a future edition – or suggest a fellow mortgage broker? Contact info@cmba-achc.ca

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