The home cooked gourmet meals made with experienced chefs platted and ready to give out to homeless of Downtown Calgary. Made by 12 volunteers In the Residence Inn in downtown Calgary. One of the three options of meals Kamika gives people to choose from when handing out the meal bags out. -Photo creds to Kamika Walker
Kamika Bianca Guerra-Walker Calgarian actor/director and entrepreneur runs her own foundation dedicated to feeding the homeless and spreading awareness of mental health. She created The Walker Foundation in 2018 with its intentions of being “a mental health organization to fill the gap where I didn’t see being met by government organizations and businesses that are meant to help this vulnerable community” providing homemade gourmet style meals to the people who need it the most. Kamika was inspired to help after watching her father struggle with mental illnesses and experience homelessness. Kamika wants to make a difference for people who have lived a life similar to her father’s. Initially when Kamika began the foundation, she reached out to the Canadian Mental Health Organization for assurance and they green lit her idea and said she should go for it.
Annual meals to help feeding the homeless
Kamika runs an event called “feed the streets”. She says during her first “Feed the Streets “she raised over $1,000 and fed over 350 individuals with that. And she’s not just giving a box of food. We’re giving three different options for snacks, three different options for dessert, a full hot meal, and several different options for drinks”. With the hopes of feeding more people each year she hopes to do them more often and continue to give homeless people options with their choice of three different options per meal. This year her goal was to do an event monthly and she nearly hit it, with raising and creating 10/12 feed the streets.
With a background of having a parental figure who was on the streets Kamika humanizes and understands that living on the streets for most of these people isn’t a choice. Going against stereotypes of homeless people being unsafe and the police advising her to stop handing out meals Kamika continues to run Feed the streets each year multiple times out of the goodness of her heart. Her delivery method is driving all around downtown Calgary in her car, looking for people who need the meals. Seeing the value of choice, she wants people living without homes to feel less pushed away from societal norms and feel like their normal selves.
Ways you can take action
Helping the homeless and people distanced from society does not take much. Here are a few simple ways that you can help these people like everyone else.
- Donating to charities and foundations like The Walker Foundation even $10-20
- Giving food to food banks.
- Talking to people on the street just like you would anyone else.
- Be open about mental health and addictions.
- Volunteering at shelters and food banks.
- Paying it forward and asking someone if you can get them anything.
Author’s reflection
Working with an interview candidate can be a kaleidoscope of experiences, each revealing facets of their potential and personality. Recently, I had the pleasure of engaging with a candidate Kamika Bianca Guerra-Walker whose compassion and devotion to helping others while growing her own skill set was very apparent. My initial interaction was akin to unlocking a treasure trove of expertise, as her responses to the Communication, an indispensable facet of any professional relationship, seemed to falter. Emails echoed into the void, and phone calls played an endless game of tag. Each attempt at contact felt like casting a message in a bottle into a tempestuous sea, uncertain if it would ever reach its intended destination. Despite the hiccup in communication, I was still in awe of everything she was doing for the community leaving me in eager anticipation of hearing more about Feed the Streets
Reflecting on this experience, it’s evident that communication glitches can cast shadows on even the most promising collaborations. As much as qualifications and capabilities define a candidate, the ability to establish and sustain contact and rapport holds equal importance. It’s a reminder of the intricate dance required in the professional realm – balancing talent with accessibility and responsiveness. While shooting the interview portion my biggest mistakes were the focus and reporter sandwich which I messed up with not having any talking room. While making the puppet show portion of the assignment, I had some problems figuring out how to put it all together, but thankfully there are a lot of helpful people at MRU.
Some of the positives from this experience was meeting a brilliant self-starting woman who has so many interests and initiatives while working and having her own foundation focused on mental health and helping the homeless. Another highlight was making a creative puppet show that I had more liberty in deciding how to make. It’s a testament to the significance of seizing opportunities while highlighting the need for a robust communication infrastructure for fostering successful professional connections.
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