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Who We Are >>
DC Central Kitchen, Inc. is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) corporation
that was incorporated on July 27, 1988 and began its first phase of operations
on January 20, 1989, redistributing the excess food from the Presidential inauguration.
The Kitchen is founded on the premise that when fighting poverty, one must fight
to win by using every resource available. Be it food, money, or people, we at
the Kitchen hate to see wasted potential. Since its inception, DC Central Kitchen
has used the kitchen as a central location to recover unused food, prepare and
deliver meals to partner social service agencies, train and employ homeless men
and women for the food service industry, and intellectually engage volunteers.
DC Central Kitchen is not a "soup kitchen." Our cohesive approach to solving
the interconnected problems of poverty, hunger, and homelessness has led us to
become a recognized national leader in our field. As a community kitchen, we recycle
over one ton of surplus food each day that would otherwise go to waste and turn
it into 4,000 meals for the hungry in the greater Washington, DC region. Among
the people preparing these meals are the students of our Culinary Job Training
program; once homeless and hungry individuals themselves, these aspiring men and
women are equipped with professional and life skills. DC Central Kitchen uses
the existing ingredients of our society to strengthen bodies, empower minds, and
build communities.
Mission
The mission of DC Central Kitchen is to use food as a tool to:
- Strengthen Bodies, by safely recovering unserved food from local
foodservice businesses to feed children and adults at partner agencies
throughout the greater Washington area
- Empower Minds, by providing culinary job training for unemployed
men and women and community service opportunities for youth and adults
- Build Communities, by providing working examples, innovative solutions,
and shared technology to a cooperative and effective national network
of programs that use food to make change in their communities.
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