Harvest for Hunger feeds Cathedral Kitchen’s bedget
A small crowd gathered on the stairs in front of Cathedral Kitchen Sept. 24 at about 2 p.m. — two hours prior to the doors opening for dinner. But the small crowd wouldn’t stay that way for long, as executive director Karen Talarico said the facility serves, on average, 300 people every dinner, every night.
Those looking for something to eat have been coming to the kitchen for about a year. Last November, the organization opened its new digs on Federal Street in Camden, moving from what was essentially an old gymnasium owned by the Camden Diocese, also on Federal Street, which showcased one convection oven, and one electric four-burner range. The old kitchen was about the size of Talarico’s current office. It’s not necessarily small — it would just be a hard place to prepare any food.
“I don’t know how staff managed to put the meals out every day, but they did,” Talarico said. “We were really exploding at the seams down there, and we always wanted to offer more to the people who came for meals, but we weren’t able to do it down there, so we embarked on this great adventure to raise $4 million to create this building.”
The former site was “busting at the seams” because, of Camden’s 79,300 residents, about 36 percent live below the poverty line, compared to 8.5 percent for all of New Jersey, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s income earning and poverty data from the 2006 American Community Survey, issued in August 2007. And according to the survey, Camden is the third poorest city with a population between 65,000 and 250,000 in the nation. For comparison, Philadelphia, a city with almost 20 times the population of Camden, has a poverty rate of 25 percent.
“Imagine, a third of the population living at or below the poverty line,” Talarico said. And those people are eligible to eat every day at the kitchen, no questions asked.
“We don’t ask for ID, and we don’t determine need in any way,” Talarico said. “We just assume that if you’re out there waiting at 3 o’clock for the doors to open at 4, you’re probably hungry and need to be helped.”
About 40 percent of the kitchen’s budget comes from personal donations; the other 60 percent comes from government grants and corporate donations, according to Talarico. Cathedral Kitchen acquires food from the governor’s state food program, the local food banks; a lot of the meat is purchased, and the kitchen has a good relationship with several restaurants, who donate food. The kitchen has a cooking staff that’s supplemented with workers from the prison work-release program, and volunteers help serve the food daily.
In the dining area, a large room with high ceilings and exposed ductwork, each plate had a piece of cake wrapped in plastic and a banana. They take what is donated, Talarico said.
The kitchen supplements its budget with direct-mail requests for donations and with a little bit of fundraising. It will hold its third annual Harvest for Hunger Wine Tasting and Live Auction Oct. 30 from 7 to 10 p.m. at Collingswood Grand Ballroom, 315 White Horse Pike, Collingswood. Last year, the event brought in $60,000. And this year’s installment has a special wrinkle to it. While each Harvest for Hunger event has had a food theme, this year it will be homegrown — as the honorary event chairman will be Aaron McCargo, a Camden native, and host of “Big Daddy’s House,” a program on Food Network. According to Talarico, McCargo and the kitchen’s chef, Jonathan Jernigan, go way back. McCargo used to work with Jernigan at a now-defunct restaurant in Camden, and when Cathedral Kitchen opened its new facility, McCargo referred Jernigan to be the kitchen’s head chef.
“They tell some funny stories about those days, and Aaron really credits Jonathan with mentoring him into the top-notch chef that he is today,” Talarico said.
In addition to serving dinner each night, Cathedral Kitchen offers a 14-week culinary arts job-training program led by Jernigan that could reduce the number of people who line up at the door at 3 p.m. each day. It’s a program that could help a town where 51 percent of its residents have a high school degree. The first class was successful, and out of the 20 students that started the program in February, 18 graduated in May — and 15 of them are now employed in the culinary industry. Students in the class will serve the people at the fundraiser.
“When we moved to this building, one of the things we were thinking about doing for a long time was using this great new fantastic kitchen to train people to work in a kitchen,” Talarico said. “It’s certainly not an original idea — soup kitchens that have morphed into training sites — and as I said, we wanted to do that for our clients, as some of them could use some help.”
Tickets for the third annual Harvest for Hunger are $60. For more information, contact Colleen Rini at 856-964-6771; e-mail colleen@cathedralkitchen.org; or visit www.cathedralkitchen.org.
Those looking for something to eat have been coming to the kitchen for about a year. Last November, the organization opened its new digs on Federal Street in Camden, moving from what was essentially an old gymnasium owned by the Camden Diocese, also on Federal Street, which showcased one convection oven, and one electric four-burner range. The old kitchen was about the size of Talarico’s current office. It’s not necessarily small — it would just be a hard place to prepare any food.
“I don’t know how staff managed to put the meals out every day, but they did,” Talarico said. “We were really exploding at the seams down there, and we always wanted to offer more to the people who came for meals, but we weren’t able to do it down there, so we embarked on this great adventure to raise $4 million to create this building.”
The former site was “busting at the seams” because, of Camden’s 79,300 residents, about 36 percent live below the poverty line, compared to 8.5 percent for all of New Jersey, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s income earning and poverty data from the 2006 American Community Survey, issued in August 2007. And according to the survey, Camden is the third poorest city with a population between 65,000 and 250,000 in the nation. For comparison, Philadelphia, a city with almost 20 times the population of Camden, has a poverty rate of 25 percent.
“Imagine, a third of the population living at or below the poverty line,” Talarico said. And those people are eligible to eat every day at the kitchen, no questions asked.
“We don’t ask for ID, and we don’t determine need in any way,” Talarico said. “We just assume that if you’re out there waiting at 3 o’clock for the doors to open at 4, you’re probably hungry and need to be helped.”
About 40 percent of the kitchen’s budget comes from personal donations; the other 60 percent comes from government grants and corporate donations, according to Talarico. Cathedral Kitchen acquires food from the governor’s state food program, the local food banks; a lot of the meat is purchased, and the kitchen has a good relationship with several restaurants, who donate food. The kitchen has a cooking staff that’s supplemented with workers from the prison work-release program, and volunteers help serve the food daily.
In the dining area, a large room with high ceilings and exposed ductwork, each plate had a piece of cake wrapped in plastic and a banana. They take what is donated, Talarico said.
The kitchen supplements its budget with direct-mail requests for donations and with a little bit of fundraising. It will hold its third annual Harvest for Hunger Wine Tasting and Live Auction Oct. 30 from 7 to 10 p.m. at Collingswood Grand Ballroom, 315 White Horse Pike, Collingswood. Last year, the event brought in $60,000. And this year’s installment has a special wrinkle to it. While each Harvest for Hunger event has had a food theme, this year it will be homegrown — as the honorary event chairman will be Aaron McCargo, a Camden native, and host of “Big Daddy’s House,” a program on Food Network. According to Talarico, McCargo and the kitchen’s chef, Jonathan Jernigan, go way back. McCargo used to work with Jernigan at a now-defunct restaurant in Camden, and when Cathedral Kitchen opened its new facility, McCargo referred Jernigan to be the kitchen’s head chef.
“They tell some funny stories about those days, and Aaron really credits Jonathan with mentoring him into the top-notch chef that he is today,” Talarico said.
In addition to serving dinner each night, Cathedral Kitchen offers a 14-week culinary arts job-training program led by Jernigan that could reduce the number of people who line up at the door at 3 p.m. each day. It’s a program that could help a town where 51 percent of its residents have a high school degree. The first class was successful, and out of the 20 students that started the program in February, 18 graduated in May — and 15 of them are now employed in the culinary industry. Students in the class will serve the people at the fundraiser.
“When we moved to this building, one of the things we were thinking about doing for a long time was using this great new fantastic kitchen to train people to work in a kitchen,” Talarico said. “It’s certainly not an original idea — soup kitchens that have morphed into training sites — and as I said, we wanted to do that for our clients, as some of them could use some help.”
Tickets for the third annual Harvest for Hunger are $60. For more information, contact Colleen Rini at 856-964-6771; e-mail colleen@cathedralkitchen.org; or visit www.cathedralkitchen.org.
