and saying “See you tomorrow”
wasn’t addressing the problem
beyond the five minutes it took
to eat the meal.
Having witnessed firsthand
how much food gets tossed in the
catering and restaurant business,
Egger envisioned a potential
connection between eliminating such waste and benefiting
the city’s hungry. Moreover, as
he watched so many able bodies queue up for food, most not
fitting textbook descriptions of
“downtrodden” or “disheveled,”
he realized that these men and
women could find paying work in
the food service industry.
Voilà! Thus was born the
concept for a central kitchen—a
place to gather food otherwise
disposed of and then distribute
it to organizations that could
use trained staff already in place
to spread the resources.
Not everyone shared Egger’s
vision, but after overcoming
countless roadblocks, he finally
received a $25,000 grant that
enabled him to buy a refrigerator truck. D.C. Central Kitchen
(DCCK) launched on Jan. 20,
1989, the day of George H. W.
Bush’s inauguration. Bush’s
inaugural balls became the first
donors of surplus food, and the
newly formed group was soon
lauded as one of Bush’s “
thousand points of light” community
organizations.
Since its inception, the
kitchen has distributed more than
20 million meals, and today it actively
provides food to 100 social service
agencies, halfway houses and others. It
also has helped more than 700 men and
women to gain full-time employment.
The mission quickly became one of
empowerment by offering transferable
life skills. According to CEO Michael
Curtin Jr., the goal is not to feed more
people “but to shorten the line by the
way we feed people.”
One program, Fresh Start Catering,
serves as the organization’s flagship, rev-enue-generating social enterprise, hiring
graduates from the culinary job training
program to prepare gourmet “conscious
cuisine” that is local, seasonal and
SHArE Our S TrENG TH
Share Our Strength
Share Our Strength was born in
the basement of a Capitol Hill row
house in 1984, in the wake of the
Ethiopian famine. Its cofounders,
siblings Bill and Debbie Shore,
believe that everyone has the
power to help combat global hunger and poverty, and by merging
their love for food with the creative
talents of chefs and food service
professionals, they have rallied
thousands across the country to
help fight for their cause.
Among Share Our Strength’s
programs, Cooking Matters has
served more than 10,000 families
a year since its 1993 debut, thanks
to chefs dedicated to teaching low-income families how to prepare
healthy and affordable meals. The
program currently operates in D.C.
and 21 states, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey,
New York and Virginia. In classes
rich with cultural diversity, adults
and kids learn lessons ranging from
food preparation and budgeting to
how to shop, during guided grocery
store tours.
More than 20,000 people,
including national spokesman
Jeff Bridges, have taken Share Our
Strength’s No Kid Hungry pledge.
Find a way to get involved in a city
near you. strength.org
Help fight childhood hunger
at this year’s “Taste of the
Nation” event May 23 in
New York City.
newyorktaste.org
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