The lights go on in Niagara College’s Benchmark kitchen in Niagara-on-the-Lake shortly before 9 a.m. Volunteer students in various stages of their programs at the Daniel J. Patterson Campus’ School of Culinary Arts don their whites and get to work.
On the menu today is an Asian-glazed barbecue pork loin, steamed basmati rice and a mix of frozen vegetables. The food will be portioned and packaged into 250 two-pound boxes, each filled to the brim with gourmet food.
Later in the day, representatives from local non-profits in Niagara such as Gillian’s Place, Start Me Up Niagara, the Boys and Girls Club Youth Shelter, The RAFT and Village of Hope Niagara will pull up in vans to collect 50 boxes each to serve to clients in need.
It’s a program called Feed the Community, initiated and led by chef professor Olaf Mertens, and it’s earned the St. Davids resident recognition from the provincial government.
On Feb. 4, Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities, presented Mertens with an Everyday Heroes Award for the project’s focus on addressing food insecurity, promoting health and wellness in the community, and diverting otherwise discarded food from compost heaps.
Mertens tells The Local his idea for the initiative got its roots from a trip to Newfoundland he and School of Culinary Arts dean Craig Youdale took a few years ago.
“I had an epiphany there,” he says. They cooked for a week, and the response from everyone they cooked for was one of gratitude, thanking them for the food, for travelling to be there, and then coming back to express their gratitude again.
“I wanted to cook just to cook,” he adds. “Not for monetary reasons, not even to teach. Just to recapture my enjoyment in it.”
Mertens grew up in his family’s Mississauga German deli. From as early as he can remember, he wanted to be a chef. After high school, he apprenticed in Berlin, Germany, and was named that city’s apprentice of the year in 1989.
He returned to Canada and spent eight years as the chef at Rogues Hotel in Mississauga, before heading back to Germany to earn his Master Chef designation. With that in his pocket, he signed on as a corporate chef back in Canada, then became the executive chef, co-founder and owner of HIP (Hospitality Inspired People) Restaurants, with three Mississauga locations – On the Curve Hot Stone and Wine Bar, Ten Restaurant and Wine Bar, and West 50 Pourhouse and Grill.
In 2010, after a decade in that role, he joined the Niagara College faculty. The journey to the east coast with Youdale took place shortly after that.
Living in Burlington at the time, he discovered a group of volunteers who were cooking for 600 people every Friday, distributing food to those in need in that area. Mertens signed on to help them out for a five-week stint.
He then brought the idea to Youdale and began a similar program at Niagara College in 2021. From its beginning that year to December, 2022, about 5,000 meals were prepared by Mertens, alongside culinary staff and students, and donated to local shelters and food banks. Already this year, 1,000 individual meals have been donated to about 20 organizations.
Mertens says it’s a bit of an holistic approach, as food is being saved from the compost bin. As well, surplus products brought in for special events, such as 100 portions of chicken from the Feb. 4 Caps, Corks and Forks event, are often frozen for future Feed the Community distribution.
And Mertens adds that cooking for those in need brings him, the faculty, and the students, all volunteers, back to their roots — feeding people because they simply have to eat.
It’s clear this project brings much joy to Mertens, who is just as happy to turn over the reins to his student volunteers and take a back seat to peel onions and carrots for the meals. Today’s menu was designed by graduating students, who consulted with Mertens on the calculations for the supplies order that had to be placed a week ahead of time.
“It’s another style of learning,” he says. “I see it more as mentoring and coaching, rather than acting as a culinary instructor.”
Youdale says the initiative begun by Mertens brings focus to the power that food and the skill of preparing it can have on the community.
“Sure, it’s a job for them, an opportunity, part of a career,” he says of the students. “ But food is really part of who we are as a society. For those that have insecurity when it comes to food, it becomes a difficult thing to deal with. When you have the ability and a skill set to help those out, to do good, we really want them to understand the power that they have.”
Krista-Lee Boyd, a second semester student from Welland, says she volunteers because “I love cooking, I have the time, and I feel blessed in my life. I love that I can come in and help make meals for people going through tough times.”
Boyd believes in volunteering and expects as she graduates from the program she will find some way to continue giving back in a similar fashion. And she appreciates the example being set by Mertens and the other faculty members who also help out.
“He’s a lot of fun to work with,” Boyd says of their jovial leader. “He’s a really good teacher as well. He lets you figure things out with trial and error. I think you learn better that way. He’s great at getting everyone involved. Everybody loves him.”
Mertens hopes to keep Feed the Community going through the summer months. The college financed the program for its first two sessions, and a local family donated $10,000 for the third session.
“The donation covered the costs of the proteins and the packaging,” he says, “as well as some dry goods that we needed. And the family knew that their donation contributed to about 2,500 to 3,000 meals. They were able to see exactly where it was going.”
Mertens’ Everyday Heroes Award was one of two Awards of Excellence presented by Dunlop to Niagara College this month. The other went to its new Accessibility Hub. Launched in spring 2022, it helps educators and non-educators alike to build accessibility-first habits into all aspects of their work.
Mertens is clearly uncomfortable with the attention drawn to him for kickstarting Feed the Community, preferring to deflect it back to the students who donate their time to the program.
On receiving the award from the Minister, he says he felt “humbled and grateful. Obviously it’s meaningful that it got recognized, but really I’m hoping it creates a ripple effect, that we can use it as a moment to scream from the rooftops about how else we can do this within the college community.”
