Men’s Street Ministry delivers food and faith in Brantford

The “Soup Guy” helped feed a lot of people on the weekend.

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“Hey, for this gentleman a bowl,” Chaplain Roger Boyd said to one the many volunteers who were distributing food to people in Brantford on the weekend. “It’s turkey vegetable, a hearty soup that will stay with you for a while.

“I made it myself, it’s one of my favorites and that’s why people call me the Soup Guy.”

A co-founder of Men’s Street Ministry, Boyd is a Mount Pleasant resident who, with the help of volunteers, spends his Saturdays and Sundays feeding the city’s hungry.

On Saturday, the soup and sandwich line stretched from Darling Street, across from St. Andrew’s United Church, around the corner on George Street across from Laurier Brantford’s Carnegie Building.

Boyd said the ministry would likely feed about 150 people on Saturday and the volunteers would be back again on Sunday. In addition to soup and a sandwich, people were given fresh produce to take home as well as a bag of food after they had received their soup.

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“We have so many different people here,” Boyd said. “We have immigrants, senior citizens, people on social assistance and we have homeless people here,” Boyd said. ”We have working moms and dads, single moms, single dads with their kids in the line.

“They’re also getting fresh fruit and produce which the senior citizens in the line really appreciate.”

Boyd said many seniors are on fixed incomes and say they can’t afford fresh strawberries and blueberries.

“When we see these many people in line today, a cold winter day, that tells us that we’re seeing those who are most desperate for help,” Boyd said of Saturday’s lineup. “You have to be in need to line up and stand in the cold for all this time to get food.”

Boyd and his wife Janet started the ministry in 2016 by giving out used clothing. They then started a soup and sandwich line and then began distributing donated food to those in need.

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The couple began in Hamilton but now serve both Hamilton and Brantford. The food they distribute includes fresh meat and fish.

Boyd thanked Mayor Kevin Davis and city officials for helping with the ministry’s efforts.

In Hamilton, the ministry feeds homeless people on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. The ministry also has a church service for homeless people on Thursday nights at the James Street South YMCA.

“We also give people the word of the Lord,” Boyd said. “We praise God and give thanks.”

Boyd said Victoria Park is amazing and in Brantford the ministry has baptized 35 people in the park.

The Association of Ontario Municipalities (AMO) last week released a study that said more than 80,000 Ontarians were known to be homeless in 2024, a number that has grown by more than 25 per cent since 2022.

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The report says that without significant intervention, homelessness in Ontario could double in the next decade and reach nearly 300,000 people in an economic downturn.

“The scope and sale of homelessness across Ontario’s municipalities is truly staggering,” Robin Jones, the president of AMO, said in a statement. “Without real and meaningful provincial action, the quality of life and economic prosperity of Ontario’s communities is at risk.

“We can solve this crisis but we need to work together.”

Told of the report, Boyd said he could only speak from his experience of serving people on the street over the past eight years.

“I can say that my volume has increased from 50 sandwiches a night to 200 a night,” Boyd said. “When I first started eight years ago, I used to go out with three gallons of soup and now I go out with 25 to 30 gallons.

“I can also say we do something like 750 to 1,000 hot meals a week in Hamilton and Brantford.”

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