Gulou Community uses love to build village kitchen

In 2011, Pingtung’s Gulou Commonity Development Association founded a care center for elderly residents, which provided a communal weekly meal and aerobics classes – a long-abandoned bus stop was also transformed into the village kitchen. Later, volunteers began selling handmade desserts and food, the profits of which were used to fund the communal meal for elderly residents. The village kitchen went through a further complete transformation to become a small shop selling food. 

By 2013, the village kitchen had already become a small local restaurant, providing its own unique indigenous style cuisine and a 7-day quality service – it had become formally known as “Gulou Village Kitchen.” The kitchen’s reputation has grown even more recently, after it tweaked the unique cuisine to suit the taste of the masses and began attracting tourists in the area. At present, the restaurant closes every Thursday, using the space to provide the communal meal and aerobics classes to elderly village residents. Additionally, at 4 o’clock each day when the restaurant closes, any unsold food is packed up and delivered to elderly residents living alone, providing them with not only food but a great deal of love and warmth.  

 “Gulou Village Kitchen” currently employs 6 young local people to run the restaurant. It is hoped that through providing such employment opportunities for the indigenous youth, the young people who need to support their family livelihood don’t need to work far away from home. Hopefully, this will in turn attract more young people back to their homeland and motivate them to give back to the community. 

Gulou Community uses love to build village kitchen 

URL:https://www.peopo.org/news/244975 

(以下是中文對照)
古樓社區 用愛搭建部落廚房
 

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屏東縣古樓社區發展協會於2011年成立老人關懷據點，每個禮拜均提供老人共餐與跳健康操的活動，並把廢棄多年的公車站改造成部落廚房。後來開始請志工們販售賣手工點心、食物，把賺來的盈餘，拿來當老人共餐的經費，於是部落廚房又變身成為販賣食物的小商店。

在2013年，部落廚房正式一周七天均有提供風味餐的服務，成為部落中的小餐廳，也取名為「古樓部落廚房」。最近則開始研發符合大眾口味的餐點，讓遊客到部落廚房有更多選擇，也慢慢做出口碑。現在，每周四部落廚房都固定休假，並利用一整天的時間，做為老人共餐的服務和活動地點。另外，部落廚房也會將每天沒有賣完的食物及餐點，在四點下班後，專程送到每一位獨居老人的手中，熱騰騰的愛心，才是部落廚房帶給社區的溫暖。

部落廚房目前聘請了六位當地青年，希望讓「需要兼顧家計的部落年輕人，不用再離鄉背景」，也吸引更多年輕人回鄉服務並回饋社區。