CK meal programs
food justice = food security + access + dignity
Community Kitchens offers a free, accessible community meal program for Oakland’s most underserved community members. Our priority is to feed people left behind by other food programs and to build community and solidarity through food. We have three pillars in our meal program including our unhoused outreach, youth programs and town fridges.
To promote food justice, we focus on equal dignity and equal access. Our founding principle “Meals With Dignity” means our Restaurant Partners proudly serve the same meals they serve their customers to warm not only the body, but also the spirit. Our Community Partners and CK Mobile Oasis deliver our meals directly to our unhoused community.
unhoused outreach
We believe food is a basic human right
Our founding meal program continues to be our top priority as we hone our meal distribution to better serve the special needs of Oakland’s unhoused individuals and families. We tailor our menus to the cultural preferences of our clients, providing choice of meal and weekly specials driven by their feedback. Working with trusted community groups, our clients are better served with our “Meals Plus” model where our quality meals are a bridge to other services and support.
We take care to distribute meals in an accessible way that is convenient for the recipients, so that the process of procuring meals doesn’t have to consume a disproportionate amount of time and keep people from having time to thrive and improve their situation.
There’s public funding for senior and youth meal programs, but not for our unhoused. So we are leading advocacy at city, county and state levels to help improve public benefits for our most underserved community members.
youth programs
Filling in gaps to feed our kids
Our Youth Meal Program was founded in 2020 working Kerry’s Kids, a mobile medical nonprofit that supports unhoused families with young children. Living without refrigerators, they learned their patients were unable to access the meal programs that supported our school kids during the pandemic shut down. We filled in the gap providing hot meals to families living in cars and hotel rooms.
We expanded with our Oakland Parks and Recreation’s Town Camp “Kitchens Around the World” meal program addressing food insecurity, while also teaching kids about different cultures. We also support OUSD Saturday Sports Camp, Homies Empowerment’s Youth Breakfast Program and Trybe’s After School programming at San Antonio Park. We are proud to partner with Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation providing meals for their bus.
town fridges
building community and solidarity through food
Town Fridges is a grassroots effort supporting publicly accessible refrigerators located in food deserts and high-poverty neighborhoods throughout Oakland where residents in need can find fresh and prepared food on a self-serve basis.
Funded by Measure HH and the City of Oakland Reducing Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Community Grants Program, Community Kitchens is stocking Town Fridges throughout Oakland food deserts with meals prepared by local restaurants, as well as community building events throughout Oakland. Volunteers from our CK Home Chef program also stock these fridges daily with their favorite family recipes.
text-based meal alerts
connecting directly with the people
At the White House Conference Listening Sessions we conducted in 2022, we heard that our unhoused struggled with finding a central source of information on where to find prepared meals.
In response, we launched our CK Text-Based communication platform providing meal alerts to our community to let them know when and where our meals are served. It also provides our clients a way to provide us with feedback. Most importantly we are building a network for getting input directly from the people on the programs we are building.
DINERS
Dining for Justice, just one penny for every dollar spent
RESTAURANTS
Cook meals
Generate funds
COMMUNITY ORGS
Distribute meals
Frontline healers
Connected and trusted
MEAL PROGRAMS
Unhoused, Youth and Community Building
Fill in Gaps - Healthy warm meals
Bridge to other public benefits & services