SUDBURY -- The Caruso Club will be a busy place Tuesday evening as community partners provide roughly 200 of the city's homeless with a Christmas dinner, complete with all the fixings.
The Elgin Street Mission was looking for a way to celebrate its clients, and the dinner comes with some major help from groups like Greater Sudbury, the Lougheed Foundation and Innova Wealth.
"We thought what's better than a wonderful, full Christmas dinner," said Pastor Amanda Robichaud of the Elgin Street Mission. "Of course we couldn't do that here because of the size and limitations."
They were able to secure the Caruso Club for the evening. Patrons will be divided into groups of 50 to allow for maximum physical distancing and COVID-19 health precautions.
"We went out and asked our clients to donate generously and we managed to raise $12,500 for every participant at the dinner to get a gift," said Innova Wealth's Allain Labelle.
"I'd like to express my appreciation for everyone that's put this together," said Mayor Brian Bigger. "We found a COVID safe way to have a dinner for the homeless at the Caruso Club."
The city will provide buses to get people from the downtown area to the Caruso Club safely.
The dinner couldn't come at a better time. Greater Sudbury has seen a large influx of homeless people and has a lack of affordable housing.
Over at the Caruso Club, staff is ready to roll out the red carpet for its guests.
"So what we're doing basically is putting 50 people in our big hall upstairs and then 50 people in our lower hall so we can do 100 people, then they would leave and another 100 would come and we would do the same thing over again," said general manager John Cimino.
"And so all of this together is going to be a great event for our clients, it's going to be a great event, a nice warm Christmas dinner for those to enjoy," said Robichaud.
Organizers said the event is to encourage and support our most vulnerable neighbours after what has been an extremely difficult year.
