A Community Kitchen
Illustrations by Anna Takahashi
Many among the next wave of skilled kitchen staff in San Luis Obispo County restaurants have possibly experienced food insecurity in their own lives. Clients of El Camino Homeless Organization (ECHO) in North County now have a recipe for success thanks to a newly installed state-of-the-art commercial kitchen and accompanying training program.
ECHO has three locations in North County, serving meals and providing a safe place to sleep to both families and individuals facing homelessness. A team of 1,500 volunteers serves as many as 150 dinners each night. The original kitchen at ECHO’s Atascadero location had served the organization’s basic needs for many years, but the circa-1970s facility was beginning to show its age. The equipment was akin to that of a dated residential kitchen, including a mish-mash of old refrigerators wedged into the increasingly cramped space.
Funding provided by Must! Charities Community Kitchen & Workforce Development Center enabled ECHO to install a new kitchen. A shared philanthropic vision between the two nonprofits will promote vocational training and social enterprise opportunities.
A Vision Takes Shape
A kitchen upgrade had been high up on ECHO’s wish list, but before funding such a significant capital project there needed to be a clear intention. “We wanted to know the long-term ‘why,’” explains Must! Charities’ Executive Director Becky Gray. “The goal was to find out how to redo the kitchen so it serves our community as a whole as well.”
The answer to “why” came directly from the local restaurant industry.
“Even pre-COVID, they definitely had a need for trained employees,” says Wendy Lewis, ECHO’s President and CEO. Input from those in the restaurant industry afforded significant structure to the kitchen project, creating an approach that would benefit both ECHO and a sizable sector of the local economy.
“Must! Charities didn’t just want to give us a shiny, new kitchen. They wanted a larger impact,” Wendy says. That vision resulted in the Community Kitchen & Workforce Development Center, which was unveiled in the spring.
In addition to raising the $385,000 capital investment for the new kitchen, Must! Charities did some creative community networking. For this project, Becky reached out to Carole and Santos MacDonal of Il Cortile and La Cosecha restaurants in Paso Robles. As longtime supporters of Must! Charities, the couple volunteered their extensive experience as restaurateurs, including bringing on a kitchen designer and an architect.
Meeting Needs and Creating Opportunities
The gleaming new ECHO kitchen is almost double the size of its predecessor. Its layout and equipment rival any modern restaurant, meaning the facility is able to provide experience akin to that of a professional culinary environment. As Wendy notes, high level culinary training will not only open doors to employment, but possibly lead to higher wages for program participants too.
“We also have a breakfast program and a lunch program,” Wendy adds. Residents work together with staff to prepare those meals, in the process learning cooking techniques and life skills. Menu planning is also part of the curriculum, to teach kitchen crews to utilize what they have and prevent food waste as much as possible.
Another component of the remodel was expanding the open kitchen concept and better integrating it into a cafeteria setting. The new layout provides a warm, welcoming place for residents to gather and allows much easier service for communal meals, including the dinners provided each night by ECHO’s committed cadre of volunteers.
Among the upgraded appliances are a new walk-in refrigerator and freezer, which have already begun paying for themselves in terms of energy efficiency.
An Investment in the Future
As COVID restrictions ease, the vocational program within the kitchen plan will get into full swing. Local chefs and restaurant owners will be invited to instruct classes on everything from professional occupational skills to techniques for cooking everyday healthy meals. Sessions will be available to both ECHO clients and low-income North County residents.
Also on the menu for ECHO’s use of the new kitchen is social enterprise, in this case, generating and investing cash in social causes. The initial idea, which is set to come online in 2023, is to make and sell gourmet dehydrated soup mixes in local shops and farmers’ markets. ECHO clients will be hands-on through all phases of the project, learning every aspect of manufacturing, packaging, sales and marketing. Profits will go to ECHO and for every soup mix purchased, one will be donated to a local person facing homelessness.
At its heart, the vision for the kitchen is to create and amplify the personal connections and peer-to-peer synergy promoted by both ECHO and Must! Charities.
“I can’t wait for the day when a restaurant hires one of our clients because of a connection made in one of those culinary classes,” Wendy said.
