Every day, Carla Norelli walks into Cathedral Kitchen (CK) in Camden, New Jersey, and watches something quietly remarkable take shape—neighbors gathering, conversations starting, and for a few hours, the weight of the world lifting over a shared meal.
While the kitchen’s clientele is diverse—unhoused community members, families with children coming from work and school, even college students—the feeling shared among the kitchen’s patrons are universal.
“We work hard to create a comfortable and non-judgmental setting,” explains Carla, who serves as CK’s director of culinary operations. “People really do feel comfortable here—they know that no matter what, we’ll be here.”
That promise is made possible, in no small part, by the support of Philabundance. As a community partner, Cathedral Kitchen has been able to back that commitment with real capacity, showing up not just on ordinary days, but on the hardest ones too.
For Carla and her team, showing up is a promise they’re committed to fulfilling each and every day, one proven by the more than 30,000 meals they provide to members of the community each month. Cathedral Kitchen operates regular dine-in and take-out meal service Monday through Friday and offers to-go meals on Saturdays. Each meal comes with an additional snack bag, whether for dine-in or take-out, for guests to enjoy later.
Additionally, they operate a Market Stand five days a week during meal service, providing unlimited coffee and distributing donated goods rescued from local retailers like Wegmans and Starbucks. The Market Stand also attracts local partner organizations like the Free Book Project and is an opportunity for patrons to access resources like addiction treatment centers, Cooper University Hospital, and more.
“The Meal Program has helped create a social environment where people can gather—in fact, we have a group of gentlemen who get their coffee and sit in the corner of our dining room every day,” Carla recalls. “It reminds of a family setting, gathering in someone’s kitchen or your aunt’s house. They’re here from the moment we open until we close and always accept new faces into their group.”
Maintaining and building this environment for community and nourishment isn’t a feat the kitchen could accomplish alone, especially during times of increased need. When SNAP benefits were drastically reduced in late 2025, the kitchen saw an influx of visitors, reaching distribution levels of 1,000 meals per day. Thanks to support from Philabundance, Carla and her team were able to deliver their promise to the community, without exception.
“Because of our partnership with Philabundance, I felt confident we could continue to get products in and continue distributing the meals our neighborhood needed—I felt no limitations,” she says. “I saw firsthand what a great source of comfort and solace Philabundance was to our community members, many of whom found themselves trying to decide between buying food, purchasing their medications, or paying rent.”
For those neighbors, Carla’s message is simple and unwavering: “Come to us. Pay your rent, buy your meds, come to use, and we can feed your family every day. We want you here.”
Because at the end of the day, she says, the mission has never been complicated.
“All we want to do is feed people and be a resource—a place of security for those who are, in so many other ways, insecure or scared,” she says.
When it comes to large-scale issues like food insecurity, Carla knows that this work cannot be taken on alone—which is another reason she remains grateful for the continued support of Philabundance and the donors who invest in the shared belief that food is a basci human right.
“A lot of outside folks might see us in an outdated way, as just a soup kitchen for homeless people—but it’s so much more than that. We’re a service to our community, here to help when they need a little support, whether that’s a brief hard time, or a lengthy one,” she adds.
“Seeing people sit around a table in a community setting—smiling, laughing, knowing that they might be going home to a tent or a bed in a shelter, but knowing that for a few hours they get to be themselves and leave with a full belly. To me, that’s everything.”
