Our 2017 Donation: World Central Kitchen
Lynley Jones
Hey, Adventure Kitchen peeps!
When we relaunched our online store in late 2017, we decided that 10% of the profits from all Adventure Kitchen-branded products would go to food-related causes. Cool, right?
Thanks to you, I'm thrilled to announce that this year we've made a donation of:
$150 to World Central Kitchen!
Here's the check and letter we sent to World Central Kitchen this year to support their work in Puerto Rico and many other places hit by disasters in 2017. Our store is brand new and still small, but we can't wait to see our donations grow in the coming years!
Here's why:
World Central Kitchen was founded by Chef Jose Andres in response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and in 2017:
Chef Andres and World Central Kitchen served over 3 million meals to the people of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.
That's more than FEMA, the Salvation Army or the Red Cross.
In fact, at one point volunteers from the Salvation Army asked Chef Andres for food!
Chef Andres took one of the first commercial flights to Puerto Rico after the hurricane. At that time, WCK wasn't really a disaster-related operation. But when he saw the scale of the need and realized no one else had stepped up, he used his own credit cards to set up a feeding operation. He then coordinated with other chefs, food trucks, restaurants, churches and schools to organize 18,000 volunteers and develop a network of 22 kitchens to get food to every municipality across the island. He solicited private-sector donations to fund the makeshift operation. Though most of the island had no power, his team of volunteers used satellite phones and a paper map to coordinate one of the largest emergency feeding operations in American history.
While others were complaining about how hard and expensive aiding Puerto Rico would be, Chef Andres - a private citizen - an immigrant - was quietly making it happen.
(As my dad would say, "there's no such word as can't.")
Read more about Chef Andres' work in Puerto Rico in the New York Times and Eater.
Read more about World Central Kitchen.
So now, curious cook:
Let's raise even more money in 2018!
10% of the profits from all Adventure Kitchen products in our store will again go to food-related causes. Some examples of causes we'd like to support are hunger relief, environmental/farm sustainability, child nutrition, and clean water initiatives.
Beginning in 2018:
The students in our summer camps will vote each year to choose the cause we'll support from that year's sales!
So, let's do it together!
Shop the Adventure Kitchen Store and come back often - we're still new, and we're growing and adding new products all the time.
In the fall of 2018 we'll announce the recipient of this year's contributions via email and social media. Follow us here, here or here to get notified! And in the meantime, thank you for doing your part!