The Working Centre

Our June 9th meeting was something a little different — and a lot memorable. Rather than gathering at our usual location, the club made an off-site visit to the newly built 97 Victoria campus of The Working Centre including a new St. John’s Kitchen in downtown Kitchener, led by the organization’s founder and driving force for 44 years, Joe Mancini.

Our club’s connection to St. John’s Kitchen goes back to around 1994, when members first began volunteering there through a church connection. By 1999, a Christmas tradition had taken shape — members would come in on the first or second Tuesday of December to share in a breaking-of-bread meal with guests of the kitchen, a tradition that continued right up until COVID. This visit was a homecoming of sorts, and a chance to see just how dramatically the organization and its campus have been transformed.

 

The new 97 Victoria Campus opened on October 31, 2025 — just months before our visit — and has been running at full capacity ever since. The building was conceived by architect Joe Bogdan, a friend of developer David Gibson of Perimeter Development, who walked the site one day and sketched out the vision on the spot: a mass timber structure with large windows built into the parking lot, creating an open and welcoming space that is visible and accessible from the street.

What resulted is a multi-storey campus that has transformed two older buildings and new construction into an integrated community response. Over this past winter alone, easily 400 people a day were using the space. At night, up to 140 people were sleeping on the main floor as a warming centre — using blankets rather than mats, with a laundry service running continuously to keep things clean and dignified.

 

Joe walked the group through the key components of the campus:

The main floor kitchen and dining hall serves approximately 700 meals a day, drawing on roughly 800,000 pounds of food bank donations annually. The food cost is manageable; it is staffing — around seven people for the kitchen alone — that represents the real operating investment. The space is not only for homeless individuals: families, downtown residents, and people simply needing a meal find their way here too.

Public washrooms, showers, and laundry facilities are available on the main floor — a service Joe described as genuinely important, and one that is heavily used. Also on this floor is a supervised consumption space, which Joe acknowledged is controversial but defended clearly: opioid addiction at the level experienced by many guests is physiologically impossible to simply stop. The space is tightly managed — relationship-based entry, 15-minute time limits, no food or bags — and its existence, Joe argued, actually helps staff build the trust and connections that support longer-term recovery work happening elsewhere in the building.

The medical clinic has been significantly expanded, with six rooms for doctors and nurse practitioners and a dedicated group room. Grand River Health Network is committed to staffing it as an extension of the emergency care system — particularly as the campus moves toward 24/7 operation. The vision is to provide a community-based space where families or first responders can bring someone in mental health crisis rather than defaulting to a hospital emergency department.

The dental clinic, long a part of St. John’s Kitchen’s programming, has been refreshed with a newly hired full-time dental hygienist, made possible in part through the federal Canada Dental Care Plan. Several former Rotary members were instrumental in creating the original clinic.

Hospitality House, adjacent to the main building, is being repurposed into an eight-bed step-down unit for homeless individuals being discharged from hospital — a 12-week transitional program developed in partnership with Grand River Health Network, modelled on the successful Dunn House approach from Toronto.

The two upper floors contain 44 residential units, currently unfilled while the organization finalizes provincial health funding for the programming required to support residents. The Region of Waterloo has committed to one floor; Waterloo Region Health Network is committed to the other. The holistic program model for residents centres on four pillars: spiritual development, counselling, medical support, and structured activities. Joe was frank that without those supports, simply housing people would not produce lasting outcomes.

 

The construction story is remarkable. Perimeter Development — the firm behind projects like the Google development and Waterloo Square — donated their project management and coordination expertise entirely, handling all permitting, architectural oversight, and construction management. They also contributed $1 million in direct funding. The construction itself, managed by Govan Brown as general contractor, took 18 months from start to occupancy in October 2025.

Several local companies made significant in-kind contributions to the build including Knell’s, Strasburger and Delta Elevators. Joe noted these three companies with evident pride — a reminder that community projects of this scale are built as much through generosity as through contracts.

The community fundraising side was equally impressive: $10 million was raised locally, matched by $10 million from the federal government — with the provincial funding for the residential programming still being pursued at Queen’s Park.

 

Joe did not shy away from the harder realities. Within six months of opening, St. John’s Kitchen held a memorial for 15 people from the community who had died — mostly from overdoses. Staff witness grief, loss, and crisis regularly. Joe spoke about the significant investment the organization makes in staff psychological wellbeing: coaching, debriefs, overdose training, and creating the conditions for people to do this work sustainably over time.

The Working Centre, which operates St. John’s Kitchen among approximately 30 projects, employs around 150 workers. Most come through wanting training and grow within the organization. Wages are average, Joe noted, but people stay because they feel supported and because the work is meaningful.

 

Our club has contributed a significant amount over the past 20 years to St. John’s Kitchen — an investment in this community resource that is worth pausing to recognize. President Bill presented a club cheque to Joe at the start of the visit, continuing a partnership that has now spanned more than three decades. On behalf of the club, thank you to Joe and the entire Working Centre team for an extraordinary morning — and for 44 years of building a more dignified community for everyone in it.