Chilliwack’s Grammy Cares for our Community

“Life happens, Grammy’s Place helps.” – Cohen Peter

Grammy’s Place is a small restaurant in the heart of downtown Chilliwack with an initiative to care for the most vulnerable members of the community by providing meals to those in need.

There is a Need Greater Than Ever Before 

Chilliwack is a community that is drastically experiencing the effects of the increased cost of living. According to the City of Chilliwack’s Point in Time Homeless Count and Survey Report (2024). On top of that, 9,000 people were living at or below the poverty line as per Fraser Valley Today (2024) and every month in the past year more than 6,000 families utilize the Salvation Army Food Bank according to Mike Vanden Bosch(2024). 

People are struggling to feed themselves. Something as simple as basic nourishment is becoming nearly unattainable.

Grammy’s Got a Plan

Grammy opened her restaurant in December of 2020 with the dream of caring for Chilliwack with the love of food. One of the very first initiatives she took was the Giving Tree; a beautifully hand painted mural painted on her wall that became adorned with meal vouchers. Anyone could take a voucher from the tree and exchange it for a meal at no cost to them, no questions asked. 

Grammy gratefully accepts donations to the Giving Tree from her guests and various community members to help cover the cost of the meals, but there is absolutely no profit gained from these meals. They are 100% by donation and served with Grammy’s love, hope, and care. 

Do Optics Matter?

It hasn’t been an easy road for Grammy in terms of her Giving Tree initiative. She faced backlash by surrounding businesses that have expressed their dissatisfaction with the assumed effects of her feeding vulnerable people. They believed that the initiative increased the amount of unhoused people in the area, thus increasing littering and open drug use. 

Do the optics of homelessness matter more than an individual’s right to access food? Does a business get to determine the demographic of people who exist within the public area they are operating in?  

Eventually Grammy received a request from the Downtown Chilliwack Business Improvement Association to cease her meal donations to the unhoused people. She reluctantly abided. For a short time. 

Grammy Just Can’t Help but Care

Grammy quit serving the unhoused people of the community, but nothing in the area had changed. People were still going without meals and living unhoused in the area. Witnessing human beings suffer when there was something that could be done about it was not sitting right with this local business owner. Feeding someone a warm meal was the very least someone could do. It didn’t take very long at all for her to get back it and start feeding her community again.  

Community Matters Most

Community is a source of healing. People need people; not just to survive but to thrive. Many are blessed with family or friends that they can count on when hard times hit, but many others are not as lucky. Grammy has created a reprieve for those without, all in hopes that our community can work together to heal each other. A sense of community matters most.