{"id":9696,"date":"2026-01-21T17:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T21:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/?p=9696"},"modified":"2026-01-22T10:11:58","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T14:11:58","slug":"serving-up-comfort-community-in-port-medway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/2026\/01\/21\/serving-up-comfort-community-in-port-medway\/","title":{"rendered":"Serving up comfort, community in Port Medway"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Members of the Port Medway Fire Department Auxiliary: Vincent Dieras, Deb Noble, Deb Lemon, Barbara Parnell, Sandi Simpson and Darlene Norman. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

As people around Queens County woke up Monday morning to power outages, volunteers at the Port Medway Fire Hall were busy giving people a place to warm up and get something to eat.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Port Medway Fire Department Auxiliary opened the hall to everyone who needed it. They started preparing food at 6:30 Monday morning and still hadn\u2019t stopped Wednesday afternoon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPort Medway is a very special community and for years it has always looked after itself,” says Darlene Norman, president of the auxiliary.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Whenever there is an emergency or a power outage, this hall immediately becomes open and there\u2019s always prepared home-cooked meals.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s open 24 hours a day until the power comes back on,” says auxiliary member Deb Lemon, “so even in the middle of the night you can come and recharge and warm up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Norman and Lemon are part of a team of about a dozen volunteers who have served three meals a day since early Monday, feeding up to 35 people at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe do scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon,” Norman says. <\/span><\/p>\n

“One day for lunch, we had pizzas, one day we did sandwiches up. We did the best spaghetti and meatballs that people said they ever had. We had homemade cheese biscuits, homemade chicken soup.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The fire hall has a diesel-powered generator so that it can open to anyone after storms, hurricanes and power outages. A Nova Scotia Power crew even stopped in on Wednesday for lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a place for people to find comfort as well as community.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone without power,” Norman says. “Mill Village people were here, there were people from over in West Berlin, East Berlin, \u2026 everyone knows, when it\u2019s open, it\u2019s open.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a real community. It\u2019s small, everyone\u2019s compacted because of the way this community is designed, people know each other. It\u2019s social, people come play cards. And whether or not you’re a member of the auxiliary it really doesn\u2019t have a bearing on if you come in and help in this kitchen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"

MIke Vandale, left, and three friends play cards on Wednesday at the Port Medway Fire Hall. (Rick Conrad)<\/p><\/div>\n

Mike Vandale, who lives in East Port Medway, was still without power Wednesday morning, so he was at the hall for some breakfast and a game of cribbage with three friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fantastic. The auxiliary have performed above and beyond all expectations. Fantastic. <\/span><\/p>\n

“Camaraderie, food, warmth, friendship.\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s a great place to come and see everybody and catch up on the news.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Vandale adds, laughing: “Misery loves company.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Norman says there are a lot of younger retirees in the small fishing village who have the time and energy to pitch in when needed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even when they\u2019re not offering free meals during power outages, the hall welcomes the community for a free lunch every Wednesday. That\u2019s in addition to their regular dances, bingo nights and other events.<\/span><\/p>\n

People show their appreciation for the free meals by leaving generous donations. And Norman and Lemon say management at the Sobeys in Liverpool has also been supportive, giving the group a $50 gift card so they could stock up on groceries this week.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the community rubbing off on everybody else around us,\u201d Lemon says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of Port Medway had been reconnected as of Wednesday afternoon. A Nova Scotia Power spokeswoman told QCCR that crews were working to restore power to more than 200 customers in Queens County as of 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Port Medway Fire Hall isn’t an official comfort centre. And it wasn’t the only place in Queens County offering help during the outage. Eight other locations were offering various services. You can check out the list on the Region of Queens website here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the audio version of this story below<\/strong><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/portmedwayfirehallcomfortjan2126.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As people around Queens County woke up Monday morning to power outages, volunteers at the Port Medway Fire Hall were busy giving people a place to warm up and get something to eat. The Port Medway Fire Department Auxiliary opened the hall to everyone who needed it. They started preparing food at 6:30 Monday morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[3218,2102,2421,79,3736,3738,3737,746,238,3735,3734,2822,929,49],"class_list":["post-9696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community-news","category-news-posts","tag-comfort-centre","tag-community","tag-community-centre","tag-darlene-norman","tag-deb-lemon","tag-meals","tag-mike-vandale","tag-nova-scotia-power","tag-port-medway","tag-port-medway-fire-department-auxiliary","tag-port-medway-fire-hall","tag-power","tag-power-outage","tag-queens-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9696"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9707,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9696\/revisions\/9707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.qccrfm.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}