News for Partnerships

The Power of Partnerships

This post, republished from The Huffington Post, kicks off our Job Raising Campaign. You can join us in shortening the line and empowering men and women to change their lives. Visit our Crowdrise page and make a contribution today. Your contribution helps us reach our goal of winning $150,000 from the Skoll Foundation. Tell your friends and spread the word.

Here at DC Central Kitchen, we train and find employment for men and women who come to us financially broke and emotionally broken. Training at-risk adults for culinary careers isn’t easy work, and we’re not perfect. In fact, we rely on dozens of partner agencies across the District of Columbia to support the progress of each individual client. And in a time when most nonprofits are desperately fighting one another for limited funding, we’re pioneering new forms of powerful partnerships.

Our collaborations start with the transitional homes, shelters, and rehabilitation programs that house people who are hungry for a second chance. Many have histories of drug use or criminal behaviors. Some are victims of domestic abuse or have had serious health issues that drove them to financial ruin. And others have simply fallen out of the workforce and never found a way back in. Whatever their histories, our partner agencies provide what they need in the present, whether it’s counseling, a warm place to stay, childcare, or substance abuse recovery. When a client has begun to get her bearings, it’s time to think about her future. That’s when public and nonprofit groups from across Washington, DC send prospective students to our kitchen, here in the basement of America’s largest homeless shelter. We have a reputation for taking on tough cases, and our partners, strapped for time and resources, are glad to know their clients are in good hands while they turn their attention to the next round of neighbors in need.

Some of our strongest partners are in the corrections community. The idea of an out-of-work ex-offender may not evoke much sympathy for some, but at DC Central Kitchen, we have found that men and women returning to this city after stays in prison prove to be some of our best students. If we want our justice system to be one of corrections, rather than simple punishment, we have to give our returning citizens a chance to rebuild their lives in ways that are both fair to them and responsible to our community’s need for safety and order. Given the extremely high costs of incarceration, writing off everyone with a record is bad business for taxpayers. At DCCK, we work closely with parole officers to identify those who might succeed in our tough, loving environment.

As you might imagine, not everyone who shows interest in our program pans out. That’s why we have developed a new ‘hybrid program’ for prospective students who are not quite ready for our intensive 14 week course in culinary arts, or those who turn out to struggle after a few weeks in our kitchen. For people who qualify for the hybrid program, we offer three days per week of meaningful community service helping to prepare 5,000 daily meals for hungry and homeless residents of our city. While engaged in the fast-paced production of our kitchen, they practice their knife skills and acclimate themselves to a professional work environment. And on the days they’re not in our kitchen, each hybrid trainee has a set schedule of meetings to attend and services to enlist that our staff designs in conjunction with their case managers. Together, we connect these individual with the support services they need to prepare for the next step in their personal and professional journeys.

And, as a culinary arts program, we rely on the contributions of restaurants, hotels, and food service institutions. Some area chefs visit us weekly to provide hands-on culinary tutorials while others host our students in their kitchens during their two-week-long professional internships. All told, we work with more than 75 partner culinary institutions across DC, many of whom respect our work enough to hire our graduates. Our industry credibility has helped our last five years’ worth of graduates maintain a 90 percent job placement rate.

I like to think that the work DCCK does is special. But we could not recruit, support, or successfully find jobs for our clients without these foundational partnerships. Sometimes, the answers to big problems like unemployment or hunger don’t lie in starting new nonprofits or convening another blue-ribbon panel. Sometimes, those answers have multiple pieces, each one held by another group working on the front lines of the war on poverty. When you look to support an organization in your community with your money or volunteer hours, look for those that are implementing smart solutions while using creative partnerships with others to squeeze the greatest value from your contribution. When unemployment is high, we all suffer. So let’s all work together to get our jobless neighbors working once more.

4 Ways Healthy Futures is Working for DC Neighborhoods

Changing Eating Habits
Our innovative and thoughtful way of preparing healthy meals at DC Public Schools has led to solid returns. The kids are eating healthier every day and bringing those healthy habits home.

Building Partnerships with Small Businesses
Through Healthy Corners, we’ve partnered with 30 corner stores in Wards 5, 7, and 8 to provide fresh produce and healthy snacks at affordable prices. Not only are we investing in these stores and providing a new business opportunity, but we’re engaging the store owners to become crucial champions of change in their communities.

We’re also investing in local farms and buying much of our produce locally. Our Farm-to-School initiative engages farmers to become part of the solution by providing much of the healthy produce we serve.

Combating Childhood Hunger by Providing Three Square Meals
Together, our Healthy School Food initiative and Healthy Returns effort, which delivers meals and snacks to after school programs and summer camps, give kids healthy, scratch-cooked meals three times per day. And these meals are packed with fresh local produce, whole grains, and lean proteins.

Educating the Community
With our Truck Farm, school cooking demos, and community outreach efforts, we’re educating the entire community about nutrition. Last year, we educated over 9,800 individuals with hands-on strategies for healthy eating and an additional 2,300 children through the Truck Farm, an innovative traveling edible exhibit that teaches kids where food comes from.

You can be part of this success. Make a contribution this holiday season to promote health and combat hunger in DC neighborhoods.

How Healthy Corners Thrives on Business Partnerships

Partnerships have become good business for DC Central Kitchen. Healthy Corners proves that good business partners can become an integral part of driving community change.

In our partnership with 30 DC corner stores, we’ve educated store owners about how important they are in promoting health through the food in their stores. We’ve also worked with the stores to help them market and sell these nutritious items. When customers started buying, retails started buying in. Last year, our 30 corner stores sold over $10,000 in produce.

Community involvement + smart business strategy has equaled new revenue for our Healthy Corners partner stores. Without considering the needs of the businesses involved in the program, we wouldn’t be successful. We talk to our participating stores each week, collecting sales information and first-hand feedback to shape future deliveries and product lines.

DC Central Kitchen is also benefiting from business partnerships by ensuring that Healthy Corners is set up for future sustainability. After the first few months of this program, all of these stores began buying the produce from us at cost. They continue to get technical assistance from our in-house experts to ensure that produce sales keep growing.

Much of the success behind Healthy Corners is also educating the community about nutrition – whether through in-school cooking demos or at community events. We could not do much of that work without our corporate, foundation, and government partners, Chobani’s Shepherd’s Gift Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, the Aetna Foundation, the 15 Foundation, NBC Universal, Ober-Kaler, and the DC Department of Health.

Join all of our business partners and be part of this work to ensure a brighter and healthier future for DC families. Visit our Donate Page and make an investment today.

Donate Today to Double Your Impact

Donate to DC Central Kitchen by Midnight on Saturday, December 15th, and the 15 Foundation will match your contribution 100 percent up to $25,000. That’s double the impact!

The 15 Foundation was formed by radio personality, author, and actress Robin Quivers in an effort to brighten the futures of at-risk children and help support effective, visionary programs providing educational attainment, nutritional improvement and creative access for young people from marginalized or resource-challenged communities.

This year, DC Central Kitchen is partnering with Robin Quivers and the 15 Foundation to support Healthy Futures, our wraparound approach to combating hunger and promoting health in DC neighborhoods.

We’re excited that Robin and the 15 Foundation are now part of this innovative approach to tackling some of our city’s most challenging problems. Make your gift today to invest in brighter, healthier futures for DC families – and it will be eligible for a match from the 15 Foundation!