Soup Kitchen - Quebec: Amma Quebec will be organizing soup kitchens at Mission Bon Accueil. Cooking and serving planned onMarch 10 , April 7 , May 5 , June 2 , August 4, September 1 , October 6, November 3 and December 1, 2012. For more information please contact coeurti@msn.com

Soup Kitchen - Victoria: Our volunteers in Victoria, organize soup kitchens EVERY SUNDAY for a non profit organization called "Our Place". Volunteers help by making sandwiches, peeling and chopping vegetables, and assisting with other food preparation; sanitizing and setting tables; serving the meal; and then helping with clean-up. For more information please contact patclare@shaw.ca

Quest Food Exchange program - Vancouver: Quest is British Columbia’s largest food exchange program. Their innovative approach to rescuing food and reducing hunger involves collecting and distributing quality food - overstock, mislabelled, or near-expired products that would otherwise go to waste - and redirecting it to those in need via four food-assistance programs. Our volunteers in Vancouver participate in the activities of Quest food exchange program in the fourth saturday of every month.

Soup Kitchen - Georgetown: The monthly soup kitchen held at Georgetown Bread Basket is proceeding well. Vegetarian chilli and fresh bread and pastries are served to about seventy clients of the Bread Basket. It is a matter of great satisfaction to hear that the hot lunch is well appreciated.

Soup Kitchen - St. Felix Centre, Toronto: Amma Canada has resumed activities at the soup kitchen in St.Felix Centre in downtown Toronto with an expanded scope starting January 2012. Amma’s group will plan the menu for the lunch, prepare the meal and serve about fifty adults and children belonging to the poor neighbourhood. Please contact us if you wish to participate.

Senior Care: You can be be involved in Amma Canada's program to help seniors. An essential service for a lot of seniors is to maintain or improve in strength, mobility and stamina. This helps to add enjoyment to life, reduce pain, increase socialization and to prevent falls which of course causes complicated health problems for seniors and the possibility of winding up in a nursing home. Mississauga Halton Falls Prevention Coordinators are interested in the Amma Foundation and our volunteers and will train us to teach a very researched set of home exercise to seniors. If you are interested in participating, please contact us.

Tree Planting: In the summer of 2011 more than three hundred fruit trees and native trees were planted at Amma Canada’s centre in Georgetown, Ontario. Some of the volunteers wondered why we should plant trees that will not bear fruit on a farm? In response, one of the farming coordinators at the centre gave the following response :

* Environment Canada recommends that we should have a minimum of 30% tree cover to ensure that we will continue to have adequate water quantity and quality.
* Trees play an important role by adding moisture to our environment when the weather is too dry and absorbing water when there is too much rain. They protect us from droughts, floods and the land from erosion.
* Trees also play a critical role in helping to slow down climate change. As trees grow they remove carbon dioxide, a worrisome climate changing gas, from the atmosphere.

In Ontario we don’t have enough trees. Where we live was once a great forest and it was cleared in a single generation because beneath it lay some of the most fertile farmland in the country. Today:

* 40 municipalities in Ontario have tree cover well below the minimum level recommended by scientists – including all 22 municipalities west of the Green Belt.
* At the rate at which we are currently planting trees in Ontario we’ll restore minimum tree cover levels in 530 years – 25 generations.
* Between 2-3 million trees are planted each year in Ontario (that’s government and volunteers combined) – however we need 50 million trees a year to restore tree cover in one generation.

While the task of restoring tree cover may seem impossible, we must remember that our ancestors were able to clear the land in a single generation using hand-held axes, a monumental and back breaking task. We are asked only to bend low and put seeds and seedlings in the ground – God takes care of the rest.

So although the trees planted today may not bear fruit in the usual sense – they will bear fruit beyond what we can understand or imagine.

Amma tells us: “Plant trees. It is a blessing to do so. Trees outlive us and provide fruits and shade to coming generations.”