At DC Central Kitchen, we believe in some basic principles. People shouldn’t go hungry when food is going to waste. School lunches should taste good. Your life expectancy shouldn’t be determined by your neighborhood or the color of your skin. It’s better to keep people employed than locked up.
Because of you, DC Central Kitchen is translating these principles into meaningful change with a simple plan: Train more people. Create more jobs. Serve more meals. Deliver more hope.
Just six months ago, we moved from our long-time headquarters in the basement of a crumbling homeless shelter into a purpose-built, 36,000 square foot facility. We promised you that we would use this additional space to do more than ever before. We’re off to an incredible start, but we need your help today to provide just what our community needs right now: a win.
Will you give our city a win with a generous donation today? All gifts made before December 1st will be fully matched by the John E. Fowler Foundation, up to $100,000!
Here’s how we’re turning our shared beliefs, and your support, into real wins for our city:
People shouldn’t go hungry when food is going to waste. We are already set to serve 450,000 more meals to shelters, schools, and youth programs this year than last. We’ve increased the number of healthy, locally grown grocery items we provide to migrant families and low-income seniors each month by 37%. We even worked with local sustainability experts to recover 20,000 pounds of delicious, donated salmon for our meals this summer.
We also think school meals should taste good. Our Healthy School Food program is now the national standard for nutritious, kid-approved menus, with a 94% student satisfaction rating! We already serve meals at 19 DC schools and are preparing to expand into even more cafeterias this year, serving healthy meals to record numbers of DC schoolchildren each day while creating dozens of good jobs for our culinary students.
How long you live shouldn’t come down to where you live or the color of your skin. But that’s the reality in Washington, DC, where we have a 21-year difference in life expectancy between our highest- and lowest-income neighborhoods, and where stark health disparities fall along racial lines. Our Healthy Corners program is taking on the root causes of these divides by hiring our culinary students to bring discounted fresh fruits and vegetables and free nutrition education to 54 small corner stores in areas without grocery stores. Sales are up 16% this year as people with limited incomes are counting on us for healthy, affordable food closer to home.
Perhaps most importantly, we believe it’s better to keep people employed than locked up. That’s why we are doubling the number of Culinary Job Training program classes we offer each year, making it faster and easier for people to enroll in our proven program instead of turning to the streets, returning to prison, or facing addiction alone.
These winning solutions are changing lives and reshaping the future of our city. Give today and be a part of the solution.