Rice and Beans

Made with love and faith.

Part 1: I Need To Be There
Part 2: Ministering Angels
Part 3: Rice and Beans
Part 4: We're Not In This Alone

Andrew & Julie. Photo supplied by them.

On February 1st, the Tuesday after the truckers arrive in Ottawa, Julie writes on Facebook:

It is hard to describe the atmosphere here. The streets are full of trucks. But not just that. Hope! Positive spirits. We’ve met so many truckers from all over Canada, and they are all resolved to see this through to regain freedoms in Canada. They love Canada. They love freedom.

…They are picking up garbage, cleaning up…Volunteers are flooding in and delivering food.

Messages have been written on the foil covering this donated food. The left dish reads: ‘Made with Love and Faith. pray, pray, pray. Rice.’ On the right, the first few lines are unclear, but the word ‘freedom,’ is followed by ‘God bless you. Beans.’ Photo supplied by Julie.

During the three weeks Julie and Andrew spend preparing hot meals for the truckers on the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway, the depth of community support is astonishing. Words, as we say, are cheap. Real, tangible assistance is in a class of its own.

Gas-fired barbecues are donated, as are tents and generators. Before they know it, they have food prep tables. Plus a gathering tent with a heater, tables and chairs, even couches. Says Julie:

And people kept bringing donations of socks and deodorant. People were driving up from Toronto with carloads full of stuff…and the [Convoy] organizers didn’t know what to do with it anymore. We can’t take anymore toilet paper, we’re good…The homeless shelters were full. We couldn’t even give it away there.

It didn’t take long before Julie had a list of Ottawa residents who’d offered to supply specific items, such as large jugs of water. The generosity, she says, really was overwhelming:

And then a church volunteered to bring soup, or meals, a few times a week. So they’d bring big pots. And then there’s this Polish community that kept wanting to bring more and more food.

…People were not hungry in our camp. At all.

Early on, one of the biggest challenges was the absence of bathroom facilities near the Parkway. Then, says Julie, someone

brought port-a-potties. I don’t know which day it was, somebody came through and they saw women and children. There was a lot of kids and a lot of women, a lot of the truckers had wives or girlfriends, or there’s female truckers. And they were using the frozen port-a-potties.

So they brought us a heated port-a-potty to Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway. I will be forever grateful to the businessman who donated that. For the entire time we were there, we had a heated port-a-potty.

next installment: We’re Not In This Alone