For 36 years, DC Central Kitchen has been showing up. Open every single day for more than 13,000 days, with no days off, we’ve continually adapted our approaches to fighting hunger as community needs evolved. With Washington, DC persistently posting some of the highest rates of hunger among older adults, we made the choice to step up in new ways for DC’s seniors.
“Senior hunger is one of the bigger issues here in DC and DC Central Kitchen is brave enough to fight that,” says DC Central Kitchen’s Dietrich Trent, who manages our community outreach efforts. Coming out of the pandemic, when health restrictions dropped but hunger remained particularly high, Trent recalls that “we started home delivering meals [to seniors referred by] the DC Department of Aging and Community Living thanks to a partnership with DoorDash and were able to deliver for seniors.”
Stepping up when it was especially hard to reach sometimes isolated older adults meant that our meals sparked new relationships—relationships Trent and others at our organization have sustained through a relentless push to connect with food insecure seniors across the city. “We now see people coming back to us, saying thank you because you because DC Central Kitchen was there for me during the pandemic when I had no food,” he says. “That means a lot.”
Since launching in June 2022, our partnership with DC’s Department of Aging and Community Living and DoorDash has allowed us to deliver 100,000 meals directly to food insecure seniors, a milestone we marked at the start of May which, coincidentally, is Older Americans Month
But our work doesn’t stop when we drop off a meal. Our dedicated outreach team typically hosts, attends, and supports low-barrier events for seniors and other DC residents six days a week, with special emphasis on Ward 5, 6, 7, and 8. These efforts include culturally relevant chef demonstrations featuring healthy recipes, educational efforts regarding our Healthy Corners program (yes, we even get seniors to use our Healthy Corners App!), and back-stopping senior-to-senior food distributions here in Southwest DC by handling and hauling heavy produce so they don’t have to. In just the last 10 days of Older Americans Month, we brought healthy food and engaging food education to a So Others Might Eat senior apartment building on May 20, the DC Senior Fest Block Party on May 21, an Older Americans Month resource fair on Minnesota Avenue on May 22, the Older Americans Month Rodeo at Seabury Resources for the Aging on May 23, the Ward 7 Older Americans Month Celebration at Kenilworth Rec Center on May 28, the Ward 8 Older Americans Month Celebration at Mathews Memorial Baptist Church on May 29, and the first Food & Farm Fridays activation of 2025 on May 30. Whew!.
Our seasonal Food & Farm Fridays collaboration held at THEARC, an inclusive campus of community services in Ward 8, is one of our most successful and comprehensive approaches to serving DC seniors. Last year, in close partnership with Building Bridges Across the River, Capital Area Food Bank, and others, we distributed over 3,000 meals to seniors and other nearby families. These weekly activations will return on May 30 and continue through the fall. We supply meals each Friday and, one Friday each month, we do a special educational demonstration that helps seniors cook and shop heathier despite tight budgets and fixed incomes. That regular presence helps community members recognize our efforts and build better relationships with DCCK. “Once everyone sees us, once they see DC Central Kitchen, they get so excited,” says DCCK’s Angel Mitchell, a graduate of our training program who now leads our cooking demonstrations. “They love everything we do. They love the food that comes to their community.”
Our work with older adults receives some of our most positive and uplifting feedback. “I didn’t really understand how much DC Central Kitchen meant to DC until I started interacting with the seniors,” says Dietrich, who joined DCCK in 2021. “They let us know how DC Central Kitchen has been a staple in this area for so long. When they come up to me, it’s always, “Thank you, can I give you a hug? Thank you for always showing up.” It’s like a big ol’ community hug when we come out there.”
If you’d like to participate in making some of the thousands of meals we’ll be distributing to seniors during Older Americans Month, please visit our Get Involved page.