Community Kitchen Facilitator

Term: Part-Time Position, September 9, 2024,  to April 30, 2025. 

Wages and hours: 15 hrs/week at $23.50/hr 

Application due date: Friday, August 11, 2023, at 11:59 pm ADT

For a pdf of the job description, click here (this may be easier to read).

Description

Loaded Ladle is looking for someone passionate about cooking and community to assist with our free lunch servings. The kitchen support staff will work with other ladle members to help cook and serve meals for 200+ people, assist with produce pick-up, and create a welcoming space for volunteers.


Detailed description of job duties, definitions for terms used in posting and more information about the organization and the hiring process below.


About the Loaded Ladle

The Loaded Ladle is a non-profit open food cooperative based out of the Dalhousie Students’ Union Building. The Loaded Ladle provides accessible, sustainable, locally-sourced free food on the Dalhousie University campus. Our collective of students and workers manages this alternative food service. 


Key terms


food justice: the acknowledgment that our food system is not neutral; we do not have a level playing field. The rules, who gets to set the rules, and the functioning of our food systems contain oppressive and colonizing forces that create and sustain inequities.


Anti-oppressive framework: This framework actively works against oppression. Oppression is the use of power to disempower, marginalize, silence, or otherwise subordinate one social group or category, often in order to further empower and/or privilege the oppressor. An anti-oppressive framework actively fights against racism, ableism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, colonialism, and all other forms of intersecting oppressions. 


Consensus-based decision-making: a creative and dynamic way of reaching an agreement between all members of a group. Instead of simply voting for an item and having the majority of the group getting their way, a group using consensus is committed to finding solutions that everyone actively supports, or at least can live with. This ensures that all opinions, ideas, and concerns are taken into account. Through listening closely to each other, the group aims to come up with proposals that work for everyone.


Non-hierarchical framework: a flat management structure, where employees work towards a common purpose, without a designated management team. 


food sovereignty: Emerged from La Via Campesina, a global peasant movement, as the right of people to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, as well as the right to define their own food and agricultural systems.


Employment Equity

The Loaded Ladle commits itself to an equity-based approach to hiring, which prioritizes hiring people from historically marginalized groups. The Loaded Ladle commits itself to an anti-racist, equity-based approach to hiring, which incorporates an awareness of systemic oppression. The Loaded Ladle will prioritize applications from people who face racist, ableist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, colonialist, and other forms of oppression. We value lived experience and an interest in food justice work. We value people's histories, identities, and backgrounds and encourage people to self-identify in their cover letter.  People who have lived experience of disability or barriers to accessibility will be given priority in the hiring process.


Kitchen Duties

  • Oversee prep, cooking, and clean-up of regular Loaded Ladle meal servings when scheduled in the kitchen.

    • Servings occur 4 times per week (Tuesdays through Fridays 9:30 am ~ 3:30 pm) during the school year (September-April). All kitchen staff are scheduled to be in the kitchen 2  times a week, 15 hours a week.

  • Create a welcoming environment in the kitchen and work with volunteers and other staff to collaboratively cook meals. Help direct volunteers.

  • Be responsible for kitchen hygiene and organisation when in kitchen; coordinate with other staff members to set cleaning standards, and take notes on inventory. 

  • Ensure Food Safe standards are met at all times in the kitchen during prep, cooking, and cleaning (Food Safe training will be provided).

  • Complete cleaning tasks (dishes, sweeping, mopping, taking out garbage/compost) in order to close the kitchen when scheduled in the kitchen.

  • Assist in market pick-up of food when necessary - Collaborate with other staff and board to participate in produce pick-up from various vendors. This may be outside of typical work hours (weekend and evenings)

  • Attend weekly Monday Kitchen meeting with all kitchen staff to discuss the weekly plan.

  • Many activities of this position require heavy lifting, being on your feet for extended periods of time, constant noise, and interacting with many people (volunteers and community)



Availability / Schedule


  • The Kitchen part-time staff are  generally expected to be available for a 30-minute meeting on Mondays, and two days out of Tues - Fridays from 9 am- 4 pm, as well as market pick-ups when necessary. Actual schedule will be determined with the rest of the staff collective.

  • In your cover letter, please indicate your availability.


Responsibilities of all Loaded Ladle Staff 


  • Be welcoming, friendly, and supportive to all volunteers and staff in Loaded Ladle spaces.

  • Attend training: anti-oppression (annual - mandatory), Food Safe certification (every 5 years - mandatory), other training as offered, and engage in professional development of interest.

  • Work as part of a cooperative collective, using consensus-based decision-making. 

  • Sit on  committees as needed, or as interest and time/capacity allow.

  • Log your hours on a shared spreadsheet.

  • Document your tasks and instructions on how to do them in order to retain institutional memory when there is staff turnover.


Requirements

  • Cooking or kitchen experience (paid or unpaid)

  • Interest or involvement in social justice causes (paid or unpaid)

  • Ability to work in a busy kitchen

  • Ability to work in an inclusive environment with a diverse group of staff and volunteers

  • Ability to remain patient and helpful to volunteers learning kitchen skills and understanding the kitchen.

  • Self-motivated/self-directed

  • Basic computer skills


Assets:

  • Ability to lift heavy items up to 40lbs

  • Valid Driver’s Licence (no car required)

  • Strong organizational skills

  • Knowledge of consensus-based decision making 

  • Experience working collectively

  • Experience working with volunteers


To Apply

Please apply through our Google Form (link below), which includes a place to attach your resume and cover letter:  https://forms.gle/MzEFmV1caNaGRWTZ7

Cover letter and alternative applications

Please let us get to know you and share any life experience that you feel is relevant to this position. We value lived experiences that may not traditionally go on a resume. Feel free to use a communication style that is comfortable for you. 


Alternative application formats are welcome (i.e. video or phone call); contact us to discuss hiring@loadedladle.com.


Deadline to apply: Friday, August 30, 2023, at 11:59 pm ADT