Skip to content

Raising the bar on chocolate making in Richmond

Right before the winter vacation, Matthew McNair secondary held its annual Breakfast with Santa charity event.
Dora Ho
Grade 11 McNair student, Adem Aktar along with teachers Quynh Aura, Meena Uppal, and Erin Matheny. helped raise $600 for charity at the school’s Breakfast with Santa event.

Right before the winter vacation, Matthew McNair secondary held its annual Breakfast with Santa charity event.

It was hosted by Student Council, Grad Council and the Marlinaires: a student based service club that aims to raise awareness and provide relief for those who are less fortunate, while encouraging social responsibility and cooperation among its members. Twelve keen culinary arts students and kitchen staff made it through the snow and arrived at 5 a.m. to start preparing the breakfast of pancakes, sausages, mandarin oranges and juice and, by 7:30 a.m, the first participants were happily dining and chatting.

Along with visits and photos with Santa, there were musical performances from the music department, as well as some spontaneous caroling by a group of staff members in memory of the school's former vice-principal, Lorne Bodin, who was loved by all and was

always game for caroling during the festive season.

The event raised an estimated $600 and the charity chosen for the donation was East Van Roasters, a local, non-profit initiative that is the newest social enterprise to come out of the PHS Community Services Society.

East Van Roasters specializes in organic "beanto-bar" chocolate and coffee that is roasted and prepared on site, and is designed to provide training and employment to the women residents of the Ranier Hotel.

I met with East Van Roasters manager Shelley Bolton recently and it was inspiring and exciting to see what she, her chocolatier Merri Schwartz, and the women employed at East Van Roasters are doing.

East Van Roasters has become a bulk-chocolate supplier to several catering businesses and restaurants in town, as well as a café and gift shop, where you can buy organic drinking chocolate and coffees, hand-rolled truffles, single-origin chocolate bars, and select pastries.

East Van Roasters also supplies freshly roasted coffee and cacao nibs, as well as couverture and customized chocolate wholesale to industry professionals and businesses. Most importantly though, East Van Roasters is empowering women in the Downtown Eastside, providing them with marketable skills, community, meaningful employment, and hope.

From all of us at McNair Secondary School, congratulations East Van Roasters on the work that you are doing for the women in the community and for raising the bar on chocolate-making in our city.

Dora Ho is a culinary arts instructor at Matthew McNair secondary.