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Giving back this holiday season

The holidays are fast approaching! Here are a few ways you can directly support our work to combat hunger and poverty this season.

Food Drives

Due to the high volume of meals we produce every day, food drives need to be centered on one or two items.  Limiting food drives in such a way allows groups to generate a quantity of an item large enough for us to use in our daily meal production. Below is a list of our most needed items:

  • Dried Beans (dried garbanzo/chickpeas)
  • Rice
  • Large cans of diced tomatoes
  • Pasta
  • Granola Bars
  • Items for our bakeshop (flour, sugar, etc)
  • Large containers of mayonnaise or barbeque sauce
  • Large containers of vegetable oil
  • Large containers of applesauce
  • Rubber gloves, disposable aprons, paper plates, cutlery

If you plan to hold a turkey drive, or any other event to collect food donations for DC Central Kitchen, please contact our food recovery team (foodrecovery@dccentralkitchen.org or 202-400-2806) before you begin collecting items.

Drop-off Guidelines

Our regular hours for drop-offs are 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. – 3 p.m. on weekends.

DC Central Kitchen’s physical address is 425 2nd St. NW, Washington, DC 20001. You can view directions on our website here. Please ensure that you receive a receipt for your donation from our on-site staff as we need to keep track of all food we receive. Donations are tax-deductible.

DC Central Kitchen is often able to pick up especially large donations; however, we greatly appreciate it if you are able to bring donations to our location. Please contact our food recovery team (foodrecovery@dccentralkitchen.org or 202-400-2804) in advance if you need to schedule a pick-up.

Financial Contributions

If you are interested in making a financial investment in DC Central Kitchen, you can do so through our website.

Thank you for supporting DC Central Kitchen. Because of you, we’re able to provide 5,000 healthy, balanced meals each day to more than 80 partner homeless shelters, rehabilitation clinics, afterschool programs, and other nonprofit partners.