Collegiettes, meet Goda Galinytė. She is one of the two coordinators for the Rabbit Hole Café and Food for Thought pantry at Yellow Door. It’s their job to come up with awesome and yummy new recipes weekly for the Friday lunches for donation at the Rabbit Hole Café (better be nice to her, guys). Want to know more about her experience at Yellow Door and how you can take part in some of Yellow Door’s other opportunities? Continue reading!
Belle Kim for Her Campus McGill (HC McGill): What are you majoring in at McGill, and in which year are you?
Goda Galinytė (GG): This is my third year of my Bachelor of Science at McGill with a major in Psychology.
HC McGill: Tell me about Yellow Door (YD) and the Rabbit Hole Café! What are their missions?
GG: Yellow Door’s mission is to empower young people to initiate and engage in community and creative projects. YD has 4 major programs to engage youth: Generations Project, Coffehouse, Branch Out and of course the Rabbit Hole Café! The Rabbit Hole promotes a healthy lifestyle and provides a safe and welcoming space where relationships can be built around food! We serve a healthy vegan lunch every Friday for a 2$+ donation. We also offer a “Food for Thought” food bank where students in financial need can come by and pick up a bag full of non-perishable goods.
HC McGill: Briefly describe your role(s) at YD.
GG: At Yellow Door, I take part in the Rabbit Hole Café and Food for Thought pantry as one of the two coordinators– we find recipes for the weekly main dish, side dish and dessert, we contact volunteers and do the groceries. On Friday we are in charge of the cooking, serving and cleaning. I am also a yoga instructor in BranchOut (a program that provides youth with the opportunity to lead, share and engage in workshops). I teach a by-donation yoga class every Tuesday at 6pm!
HC McGill: Can you share with us in what ways YD/ Rabbit Hole Café has inspired you?
GG: I’m inspired by the power that one place can hold to bring people together. Whether it’s volunteers working together with a shared positive mentality, people coming to events alone or arriving in a group, there are always new friendships being built in the safe atmosphere that YD provides. It’s amazing how YD has the ability to reach out and engage youth to be part of and give back to the community. So much can be achieved when a group with a collective consciousness gets together and work towards a common goal.
HC McGill: What are the biggest challenges in your role at YD?
GG: I would say the biggest challenge is having to turn people away once we’ve ran out of food. We use the donations for groceries the following week, but even as much as we would love to continue serving more and more people during the Friday lunch hour, the reality is we can only make so much food with the appliances and kitchen space that we have regardless of the amount of donations we receive. So there is a limit to how many plates we can serve.
HC McGill: If you could choose one of your favorite experiences at YD, what would it be?
GG: There are quite a few! One that I won’t forget about for a while is when it took 4 of us and a full hour to clean a single large pot. It was a tough job, but we took turns scrubbing and laughed about it and felt super accomplished once it was clean. Also another recurring experience is with psyllium husk… we use it sometimes as an egg replacement for vegan desserts and it has become a ‘tradition’ to mix it with water and drink it, which is not that pleasant of a texture, so we laugh about that one a lot too.
HC McGill: What are some great reasons students at McGill should be encouraged to volunteer at the YD/the Rabbit Hole Café?
GG: By volunteering at the Yellow Door, you are not only giving back to your McGill community but also growing as an individual by developing new skills and making friends with other kind souls. Yellow Door is great because they offer a variety of volunteer opportunities depending on your interests. Food and cooking, music and performing, working with seniors, art projects, meditation, yoga and so many opportunities are available at the Yellow Door. If you’re interested check out the website. I would love to see you there.
Images provided by the interviewee.