Would you like some pancakes?

This Sunday, August 31st, Stonehaven Community Church is hosting a free breakfast for everyone. Family games, aromatic coffee, delicious pancakes, sausages and much more await those who come!

There is something surprisingly simple and at the same time heartwarming about having breakfast with your neighbours one morning. This Sunday, August 31, Stonehaven Community Church in Kanata invites residents of the area to a free neighbourhood breakfast, which will run from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Pancakes, sausages, hot fragrant coffee and much more will be waiting for guests. And family games will surely give kids (and many adults too) one more reason to stay a little longer.

The event takes place on the address 2 Stonehaven Drive, Kanata. Stonehaven describes its mission as creating a place where everyone can feel at home: “A Place for You to Belong.” Work with local community has long been an important part of the church’s life. The current congregation grew out of Bridlewood Community Church of the Nazarene, which in 2022 has merged with Pathway Church Kanata to form today’s Stonehaven Community Church. The church hosts not only Sunday services but also various neighbourhood events. In November 2024, for example, one of the Kanata South Christmas tree lighting ceremonies took place there.

But for me this breakfast is not just one more date on the neighbourhood calendar. This year I again take part in preparing it, like I did in previous years. And every time I am amazed by how warm the atmosphere at these gatherings is.

People come almost without knowing each other, sit down at the same table, grab a coffee and some pancakes, start talking, and suddenly it turns out they live literally across the street from one another.

We often hear that in big modern cities people more and more often feel themselves lonely. According to Statistics Canada, in the first quarter of 2024 about 13 per cent of Canadians in age of 15 and older said they always or often feel lonely. Having social connections, on the other hand, is closely linked to better well-being and quality of life. Maybe this is exactly why small neighbourhood celebrations like this one matter much more than we think.

For me, they also bring back very personal memories. When I was a child, neighbours knew each other. Families were friends, kids played together, adults got together for holidays and visited each other’s homes. You did not need any special reason to knock to the neighbour’s door.

Today you can live next to someone for years and not even know their name.

Probably that is why I keep helping to organize this breakfast, even though I can’t really call myself a religious person. For me it is first of all a story about being neighbours, about human warmth and the simple joy of talking face to face.

So come for the pancakes. You might leave with something more: an interesting conversation, a new friend, or finally the name of the neighbour you have been passing on the street for years.

Stonehaven Community Church
2 Stonehaven Drive, Kanata, ON K2M 2P9