Take one step into the newly remodeled demonstration kitchen at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, and you’ll get the urge to cook. With a set up that makes you feel at home, this warm and inviting space has slowly grown out of the ever-changing needs of food banks across the country.
The Atlanta Community Food Bank works to provide food to every local individual in need. But, when the recession hit, the team had to get creative about finding food sources. With millions of pounds of produce turned under every year due to size or color, produce became their saving grace. As the program began to bring more produce to communities in need, however, the conversation around food use and preparation quickly changed.
“In food banking, you work with what you get, and some people we support may not know what to do with produce like rutabaga or kale,” explains Sarah Fonder-Kristy, vice president of development at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. “We set out to help people feel more comfortable with the new and different kinds of food available.”
The team hired a dietitian, started a grassroots nutrition and cooking education program, and quickly began to look at their underused, industrial kitchen as a space with endless programming possibilities.
“One of the biggest challenges in cooking education is that people can feel intimidated, and an oversized, steel kitchen wasn’t helping,” says Sarah. “With the help of The Home Depot Foundation, we’ve been able to turn a cold, industrial kitchen that didn’t support our needs into an inviting space where people can feel comfortable conquering new cooking skills.”
Now that the space is open for cooking, the Atlanta Community Food Bank and Home Depot Foundation are continuing to work together to find opportunities to support the dietary needs of local veteran communities.
“Last year we served 755,000 people, 11 percent of which were veterans,” says Sarah. “Our vision for the space is to partner with a variety of agencies and reach many different types of communities in need. Veterans are definitely one of them.”
See the total transformation of the space in the images below, and of course, we had to add an orange flare to the transformed space.
