Forest Fritter Friends work to provide path to ‘meaningful life’

By the time the door closes behind a customer entering Forest Fritter Friends, Chantelle Kemp-Chambers is at the counter to welcome them and ask if it’s their first visit.

The downtown storefront on 28 King St. W. is the a new non-profit training center for adults with disabilities. It makes and sells apple fritters, apple cider donuts and other treats Wednesday to Saturday, 10 am to 3 pm

Kemp-Chambers is one of four “team members,” all over 21, so far at the center, created by Janet and Tom Cullen, whose son, Mark, is another.

“We moved to Forest because Tom wasn’t well, Mark was 30 with autism and our daughter married a farmer,” Janet Cullen said.

“We love Forest,” she said. “It’s an amazing town.”

After 30 years in Uxbridge, where Tom was a pastor and she was allergy manager for a school lunch company, they moved to Forest two years ago to be closer to their daughter, Nora Gordon, in Thedford, Cullen said.

Janet Cullen had stopped working to be home after Mark turned 21 and aged out of the school system.

Life can be grim for adults with disabilities once they’re too old for school because of the lack of jobs or day programs, she said.

“When we moved down here, it was a big change,” Cullen said. “There was nothing for Mark to do.”

So the couple decided to fill the void.

“It used to be my hair salon,” Cullen said of the storefront next to the Kineto Theater in downtown Forest’s downtown. Renovations and equipment cost about $100,000, funded by the Judith and Norman Alix Foundation, donations and a loan.

“We bought it a year ago June and I thought we’d be able to open it very quickly,” Cullen said.

“No,” she added. “It’s been a year of waiting, learning patience and learning faith, and just knowing this is the direction God wants us to go.”

A large kitchen hood vent had to be installed over the fryer where fritters and donuts are cooked before being stacked on metal trays, sugared and set out on a front counter. That’s where Mark was folding boxes and filling them with customer orders one recent afternoon.

At another counter, team members mix dry and wet ingredients to be ready when Tom operates the fryer.

Next to that is a cooler and sparkling apple cider tap, an ice cream machine and dishwashing station, where team member TJ McCaw was at work.

As well as offering team members a social outlet and place to make friends, “we want to give them tools to obtain a job,” and, perhaps, eventually become independent, Cullen said.

“The short answer is to give them a meaningful life,” she added.

“We’ve been open three weeks and we couldn’t have done it without the faithful prayers of friends, but also we’ve been blessed by so many people,” Cullen said.

Volunteers assembled steel for workspaces and counters, the soft ice cream machine and a mixer were donated, and a group gave money raised at a community event.

Cullen said they started out looking for something the adults they hoped to serve could do — with guidance from volunteers — and “something people would want over and over again.”

That led them to apple fritters.

They learned Forest has a rich apply history of orchards and was once home to a basket factory and cannery. “This was a real apple mecca,” Cullen said.

They use local apples and apple cider, and specialty items sourced from across the region.

“We’ve got coffee from London,” she said. “We’ve got apple chips from Kitchener. We’ve got chocolates from Stratford. We’re got peanuts from Picard’s.”

“Forest is the town, the fitter is what we want to do and the friends is our gang,” she said of the name they settled on.

“It’s all about them,” Cullen said of the team members. “It’s a training center for adults with super abilities that just aren’t acknowledged by other people.”

Most of the centre’s space is designed for use by team members.

Behind the counter is a large table for team members and volunteer “trainers.” There’s also a staff locker room at the back, along with a “chill room” with beanbag chairs and a TV team members can use.

For more on the center, joining the team or how to support the venture, visit forestfritter.ca.

Customers in Forest, and from elsewhere, have been supportive and eager to know when fritters are ready, Cullen said.

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