Starting the revolution, one burrito at a time
A finished burrito ready for rolling made by volunteers at Burrito Project Montreal. More than 400 are made each week. Photos by Alyssa Tremblay
It's Sunday afternoon and the Henry F. Hall Building is almost empty. But up on the seventh floor, in the warm, steamy kitchen of the People’s Potato, an eclectic group is hard at work on a burrito assembly line.
The group of 10 includes a bank manager, two first-year CEGEP students and a professor from the John Molson School of Business. Some of them wear bandanas to keep their hair back while they work – and the work is tough. In less than an hour, the volunteers scooping rice, sprinkling salsa and drizzling hot sauce assemble a grand total of 456 burritos.
This isn’t a one-off event. Every Sunday, Burrito Project Montreal’s members and volunteers meet in the People’s Potato kitchen; then they distribute the fruits of their labour to homeless people around the city.
Anyone is welcome to walk in and grab a cutting board, which means the manpower varies from week to week. Some volunteers are regulars; others heard about the project through friends, or on Kijiji.
"It's a pretty open kitchen,” says one of the Burrito Project Montreal collective’s six official members. The group asked not be named individually, in an effort to keep the focus on what they do, rather than who they are.
Inspired by a Los Angeles-based initiative, the Montreal chapter is grounded in the idea of not only feeding the homeless, but feeding them a good, healthy meal.
"Healthy food is definitely one of the key ingredients — pun intended — to a successful project like this," says another collective member. "If you go to the mission, you might just get a peanut butter sandwich at the end of the day and some Five Alive, which isn’t even real juice."
Each vegan burrito is made with fresh ingredients: a whole-wheat tortilla, two kinds of beans, corn, cilantro, onions and tomato. Wrapped in aluminum foil, the finished product is a portable, handheld meal that keeps for days — a crucial factor for those living on the streets.
Burrito Project volunteers spend their first few hours in the noisy kitchen in the Hall Building, dicing up fresh veggies. Depending on who is controlling the CD player, the slicing soundtrack ranges from jazz fusion to dubstep.
After the burritos are rolled and counted, the group splits up into teams and delivers them across the city. With each jam-packed burrito weighing about a pound, the collective is seriously considering investing in a baby buggy to help haul the cargo.
The Burrito Project offers the option of a spicy or regular burrito, as well as useful items like mittens, socks, condoms and sanitary pads. The volunteers and members also chat with the homeless people they meet on their rounds. Communicating with those ignored by society is a key element of the project: they learn names and listen to life stories.
The project started with a small group of friends and about $50 of donated groceries. Two years and an estimated 10,000 burritos later, the project funds itself through catering orders, and by selling its burritos at local co-operative stores like Co-op Maison Verte in NDG, AUS Snax Café at McGill (AUS is the Arts Undergraduate Society, who run the café) and Concordia’s Frigo Vert.
James Goddard, a Frigo Vert collective member, explains that the burritos sell for $4 with tax, with $3 going directly to the Burrito Project. The store orders about 300 a week, and there are rarely any left over.
On top of sharing space on campus with the People’s Potato, a vegan soup kitchen, the Burrito Project depends financially on the hungry Concordia students who pick up their burritos at Frigo Vert.
“I don't know if people really get how much they help,” says one Burrito Project collective member.
This year the project saw an "unprecedented number of contractual sales" every week — enough money to do things above and beyond the burritos, like putting away $600 towards paying for a not-for-profit status.
Burrito Project Montreal is always looking for enthusiastic volunteers. To join them, swing by the People’s Potato kitchen on the seventh floor of the Hall Building any Sunday at 12:30 p.m. To learn more or to place an order, visit them online.