The Bunker is $280K short of completing the project
The Bunker’s latest social enterprise has hit a financial roadblock, but executive director Kevin Hildebrand has faith the community will come through and help them get across the finish line.
The Winkler youth ministry has spent the past several months renovating the former Central Station Community Centre space at 545 Industrial Drive into the new Industrial Eats BBQ & Smokehouse.
The project is much more than just another local eatery. In addition to serving as a way to raise funds to support the drop-in centre’s youth programming, the restaurant will also provide employment for marginalized members of the community. The plan is to hire youth and seniors who need a more supportive work environment than might be offered elsewhere, with flexible work shifts and a culture of mentorship and understanding.
Thanks to The Bunker’s own savings and the generous support of numerous area businesses, churches, and individuals, phases one and two of the renovation project, which saw the installation of a commercial kitchen and various accessibility upgrades, are on track to be completed early in the new year.
“We’re working with WBS Construction and with a lot of the local trades. They’re doing everything they can to keep costs as low as possible,” Hildebrand said. “There have been a lot of great people helping us get to this point.”
However, The Bunker right now is looking at pushing pause on beginning phase three, which includes finishing work on the 80-seat dining room and a secondary kitchen prep area, until additional funds can be secured.
“We had hoped we would have enough money come in during the year that we would just be able to keep right on going into phase three,” Hildebrand said, explaining they began work with about 75 per cent of the approximately $700,000 needed for the entire project, confident the rest could be secured as work got underway. “But there were a lot of grants that I applied for that fell through and a lot of different hiccups like that that I hadn’t anticipated.”
He estimates they’re about $280,000 short of what they need to complete the renovations. They can’t move forward until they get the bulk of that funding firmed up.
“The last thing we want to do is leave anybody hanging with tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid invoices,” Hildebrand said.
Bunker reps have reached out to numerous businesses and individuals this fall about the project, and now they’re hoping a few more who expressed interest in potentially supporting it will consider doing so before year’s end so the renovations can continue in 2024 uninterrupted.
“I’ve gone to a lot of businesses personally and talked to them about this,” Hildebrand said, noting most everyone has been excited by the idea behind the restaurant, but that hasn’t necessarily translated into financial support. “So far there have been lots of good intentions, but not a lot of action.”
Meanwhile, there are already a lot of youth and seniors who have expressed interest in working at Industrial Eats when it finally opens—teens eager to gain new skills and older adults keen to get back into the workforce as mentors.
It’s going to be a place where relationships are built, Hildebrand said, but they need the community’s help to make it a reality.
If you’d like to make a donation to support the project, head online to bunkerministry.com or contact Hildebrand at 204-325-9723. You can also follow the project’s progress on its Facebook and Instagram pages.
