A Gift of Chili

By Jack Krayenhoff

Once a week James Bay New Horizons offers members a really good deal: a bowl of chili with a bun, dessert plus a hot drink -for only $4. How can they do it?

The secret is a big pot of chili, enough to feed 35, donated, no strings attached, by Dave every week.

Dave who? Well, that's a funny thing about Dave when I go to visit him: he is not going to tell me his last name. He wants neither his name, nor his face, in any newspaper. All those journalists want is the sensational you see; you tell them one thing and it winds up in the paper all warped, to make it interesting. Dave can see that I am a decent guy (as if to prove that he gives me two of his delicious little donuts), but all the same: he's not going to tell me anything about himself. All I'll get out of him are the facts about those pots of chili for seniors who need it. He has a heart for seniors, that's why he does it. But beyond that- nothing more than the facts.

And what are the facts?

Dave is a quiet man, in his mid-sixties I would guess, who runs Grilligan's, a place on Fisherman's wharf, where besides chili you can buy all sorts of other excellent food ready to go while you are looking at those funky house boats that are moored there.

It's a fun place, by the way, well worth a visit

Dave tells me he has been there for eight years now. He calculates that the chili he donates to New Horizons is good for 1,500 meals a year, and he expects it won't be long till he reaches the 10,000 mark. Those are the facts, and that is all. Sorry, he knows I am only trying to do my job, but that is it.

But I can actually tell you one more thing about Dave, and that is that he feels pretty good about all that chili he has given for seniors who can do with a square meal. When you stand in front of Grilligan's, there on the right, inside, is a board with some figures, like the ones I just gave you. Why don't you visit him some time and ask what they mean? I bet he will be very pleased to tell you. He deserves that much satisfaction for all those meals he has given seniors over the years, don't you think?