The Art of Giving at D.C.'s Central Kitchen

This writer would not have found the D.C. Central Kitchen had he not been given very detailed directions. I would have walked right past the doors, as I have hundreds of times before; on my way to dinner with friends, to a play or to a club; just as I have walked past the homeless on the sidewalk in our nation's capital, huddled under doorways, or lying on benches. I just never noticed them. And yet those doors, hidden at the end of an alley on Second Street NW, are the portal for both sustenance and hope, for people who have come to live without both.

The D.C. Central Kitchen is more than just a provider of food for the hungry. It has also become an avenue to a better life for those who arrive looking for a bite to eat.

Founder Robert Egger, an aspiring nightclub owner, had been part of the food service industry for years, and as such, he knew that restaurants throw away pounds and pounds of food every day. Watching as the garbage was filled daily with uneaten, perfectly good food, he felt it was a terrible waste, especially with so many people out on the streets going hungry.

He also knew there were plenty of people who not only needed the food, but could also use a job. He felt he could enroll them in preparing the very food that they needed.

To Egger it was an obvious formula, but it would require him to put in a massive amount of work writing grants, talking to restaurants, and arranging for supplies, before his vision could ever become a reality.

Amid all the work, however, was the sense that something big was going to happen to crystallize it all. As luck, or perhaps destiny, would have it, the opening of the kitchen coincided with the election of a new president. It was as George H.W. Bush prepared to enter the White House in January of 1989 that Egger was first able to score a major donation to his new kitchen.

It was from the new administration, and it wasn't money. Instead, Egger asked the new administration to donate all the extra food from its many inaugural parties. The new president agreed, and as the nation welcomed in its new Commander in Chief, the D.C. Central Kitchen received its first donations.

The event drew the attention of the national media and ensured a massive influx of support as well as a brief illumination of the problem of homelessness and hunger in the District.

But while the attention has faded since, the work at the kitchen has grown, as has the equally persistent problem of homelessness and hunger in Washington, D.C. and throughout the U.S.

Mike Curtin, former owner of the Broad Street Grill in the City of Falls Church and a resident here, was recently hired as the chief operating officer of the D.C. Central Kitchen. He invited the News-Press to visit the kitchen to get an idea about what it does. Located beneath the largest homeless shelter in the U.S. and within just a few blocks of the Capitol dome, the kitchen is a maze of food stage units, cooking spaces, and offices snuggled in every available nook and cranny. Curtin’s own office stuffed in a converted broom closet.

The lighting is a little gloomy and the clutter is necessary because of limited space, but the air is also heavy with the savory smells of chicken soup and baking bread, and the smiles on the face of the staff and volunteers bring a definite cheeriness; a different kind of light in the drab surroundings.

At 10 a.m. the kitchen is busy. Students with the Central Kitchen’s training program work cooking turkey, preparing salads, and prepping a variety of other dishes that will be carted out to shelters throughout the area later in the evening where they will provide nourishment for up to 4,000 people a day.

For many shelters in D.C. and surrounding areas in Maryland and Northern Virginia, the food that D.C. Central Kitchen provides allows them to spend the little money they have on necessary upkeep at their facilities and other services for the homeless.

The Central Kitchen provides over 700 meals a week for the ASPAN shelter in Arlington, 125 meals and 120 snacks each week for Baileys Crossroads Shelter in Falls Church, and 100 meals and 120 snacks a week for Mondlock House II in Alexandria, among others. These are just a few of the hundred or so non-profit groups the kitchen helps. Overall the kitchen donated and delivered over 1.5 million meals in 2003, nearly 4,000 each day.

Much of the food donated to the kitchen is unused, leftover food from local restaurants, bakeries and private parties. In 2003 the Central Kitchen received and recycled over 1.1 million pounds of food.

Curtin said that while it is physically nourishing, the food has an ulterior purpose. As his people deliver food to shelters, they are also looking to assist homeless people and get them off the streets. “The food gains their trust,” Curtin said. “It allows us to get to know them, and to help them get into substance abuse and mental health programs.”

After helping them receive those initial services, the kitchen makes its culinary job training program available. The 12 week training program includes classroom and practical training in food preparation from skilled chef instructors, and more. It also offers life skills training to help students succeed in the jobs they get after graduating from the program. The program is not without challenges for its students. While enrolled they are required to stay clean of drugs and alcohol and consistently attend classes. But those that finish the program have a genuine opportunity to change their lives.

Because of relationships that the Central Kitchen has worked out with local and national catering companies, all graduating from the program are guaranteed at least temporary employment. Curtin described the first graduation he attended since taking his new post a few months ago. “It was a life altering event,” he said. The graduation started with a small meeting of the class and each student stood up and told his or her story of how they ended up in the program. After all had finished they proceeded to the nearby Hyatt Hotel to a full ceremony, each person wearing the chef’s coat they were given when they first entered the program, with their name embroidered on the front.

“To see these people with their grown children and their children’s children watching, it was so moving,” Curtin said. “They were so proud you would have thought it was Harvard Business School.” While important for the students, the graduation is sometimes even more important for the staff. “Every 13 weeks it reminds us what we’re doing here,” Curtin said.

After the trainees graduate, the Central Kitchen remains in contact with them for a year, charting their progress. The kitchen has trained over 500 people and according to its data, 80% of those making it through the program have succeeded to stay off the streets and continue working.

For some, the D.C. Central Kitchen also serves as a place of employment. Their Fresh Start Catering program is a commercial kitchen that serves clients in private industry, government, and not-for-profit organizations. Some graduates from the training program are hired to cook and serve the food.

Contract Foods is another employment program that caters to specific clients on a contract basis. Clients include institutions like charter schools and meal programs for the elderly.

The proceeds from both these programs sustain them and provide support for the Central Kitchen’s primary food donation program. Darnell Herndon, a former trainee, has been working for Fresh Start Catering for four years, the longest time he has kept a job since he ended up on the streets 10 years ago.

For 14 years Herndon worked with PEPCO arranging street light infrastructure in Silver Spring, Bethesda and other parts of Montgomery County. The job paid him well enough to support his wife and purchase a home. But he got involved with drugs and began spending more and more time on the streets, eventually leading to disaster. “For four or five years I just disappeared. I was doing drugs, running the streets, I lost my house, I lost my wife,” he said. For a while he was able to live off of his remaining stocks and bonds until he eventually spent everything he had and hit rock bottom.

Eventually Herndon wound up at the D.C. Central Kitchen. At first he was looking for food and then, later, a second chance. After receiving substance abuse assistance, he started the culinary training program, graduated after 12 weeks, and began working with Fresh Start. He was dubious about the program at first. He didn’t know anything about cooking and he wasn’t sure he could do it. “It was a challenge because of the unknown,” he said. But he gradually came to feel comfortable with the work.

While he hasn’t been able to recapture the life he had before, his experience has made him thankful for what he has. “It’s not what it used to be for me. But it’s much better than it was 10 years ago,” he said. “I’m content. I have fun. If it wasn’t I couldn’t do it.”

Today he is a constant in the kitchen, never missing a day of work. After four years on the streets, doing nothing he is committed to staying occupied. “I’m almost afraid of not doing anything,” he said.

Having originally come to the kitchen just for food, Herndon is very aware of the Central Kitchen’s true mission. “It’s just a godly place. Especially during the Christmas season, we’re really needed, and I am glad to be a part of that,” he said with a smile. As he works training people, arranging food deliveries, and coordinating donations Curtin has, himself, gained another kind of assistance from the D.C. Central Kitchen.

While Curtin has been at the kitchen for three months, he was familiar with its work from the beginning. As a restaurant owner in Falls Church, Curtin got to know the kitchen by joining the many restaurateurs donating leftover food to it. Though, as a business owner, he was feeding paying customers and trying to make his ends meet, Curtin always saw owning a restaurant as a way to serve people. He worked to make the Broad Street Grill part of the community, supporting local programs and taking an active role in the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce. When he made the decision to sell his restaurant, he was faced with the possibility of not being able to serve in the same way.

But his work at the Central Kitchen has been a new start for him. He now helps serve more than a fancy chicken dish or thick steak to paying customers. He’s now serving people food that is vital to their survival and giving them opportunities that could change their lives.

“We’re not just serving food,” Curtin said. “We’re training people for life.” One of the things that the Central Kitchen does is allow people to help those they have too often considered beyond saving. Volunteers are invited to come in and donate their time to help out with food preparation in the kitchen.

From government officials looking for a new perspective on the people they serve to parents trying to show their children the importance of giving, the kitchen enables people to be directly involved with one of the most elemental aspects of helping others; feeding them. Recently the Central Kitchen has started to expand its work nationally through its Campus Kitchens Project. Working with University campuses the program takes food donated by the campus food service and uses the campus kitchens during off hours to prepare food for the homeless. With only one paid staff member running the program at each campus, the rest of the service is provided by student volunteers.

At the University of St. Louis and Dillard University in New Orleans, the project has recruited 300 student volunteers and delivered more than 25,000 meals. In the next year they are planning to expand the program to several more university campuses.

For Curtin and the D.C. Central Kitchen it is all part of their service. They don’t pretend they’re saints or that they can save everybody. All they do is offer opportunities for people to help themselves and provide a reminder to those who have no problem affording food that they too can make a difference, even when it’s just dinner.