LAKEFIELD — Community Care Lakefield’s Soup-a-licious fundraising event is returning next month, poised to provide affordable meals to residents while spreading the word about the non-profit organization’s wide range of services — one helping of Thai chicken soup, quiche and much more at a time.

Community Care Lakefield’s office — one of eight hubs under Community Care Peterborough’s umbrella across the county — will serve up a variety of meals for $5 each on March 1 as part of the annual initiative.

The program, carried out in concert with The Turner Catering Company, has been running for 12 years in Lakefield.

“It’s a great fundraising event,” Lorna-Ann Le Lagadec, a volunteer at Community Care’s Lakefield office, told The Examiner.

While providing tasty meals, the event is also a “good way to promote Community Care Lakefield, and to reach out to the community,” she said.

Powered by dedicated volunteers and staff members, Community Care supports the health and well-being of residents, caregivers and communities through a myriad of programs and services, including Meals On Wheels, transportation and at-home support.

The money raised from Soup-a-licious is used to support Community Care Lakefield’s nine services. Le Lagadec said the charitable organization doesn’t set a specific fundraising goal.

“We’d always like to do better than the year before but that’s not really our goal. Our goal is to reach out to the community, provide healthy alternatives and spread the word about Community Care Lakefield,” she said.

“We set out to connect with the community and people who might need services and this way they might get in touch with Community Care and discover they need services, and we can help them further.”

On the menu? Potato leek and bacon soup, Thai chicken soup, sweet potato and coconut soup and broccoli, onion and cheddar quiche.

Residents can place orders by calling Community Care Lakefield at 705-652-8655, by emailing lakefield@commcareptbo.org or in-person. Orders must be completed by delivery. Meals can be picked up at 40 Rabbit St., Lakefield or delivered on March 1. Cheques, debit cards and Visa cards are accepted.

“Anything that we’re bringing back after the pandemic or that’s new, people are very excited for because I think it reminds people that things are getting back to normal. It gives people hope,” Le Lagadec said.

Brendan Burke is a staff reporter at the Examiner, based in Peterborough. His reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.

Brendan Burke, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Peterborough Examiner