The COVID-19 crisis has changed the way everyone does business, and the Philabundance Community Kitchen (PCK) is no different. Our day to day operations have certainly changed over the past few weeks, but we are still here for our city, neighbors and you! Here’s what we’ve been up to:
Our Students
In order to ensure the health and safety of our students, we made the challenging decision to place a temporary hold on in-person and on-site education. This was an especially hard decision because our students have overcome immense personal barriers in order to pursue their educational and professional goals. Even though our students aren’t physically with us, we are still doing everything we can to virtually support them. Students receive weekly support calls, newsletters and email from staff that include resources for continuing culinary education at home in addition to information on how to manage stress, current job opportunities and messages of hope and encouragement.
PCKatering
Across the nation, more and more people have become food insecure. PCKatering, PCK’s catering division, is stepping up to help fill that gap for Philadelphians. Typically, PCKatering serves private as well as corporate breakfasts, lunches, dinners, weddings and more, but have recently switched gears in order to provide additional meals to our city. Since Governor Wolf expanded the stay-at-home-order to all Pennsylvanians, PCK`me and the Federal Housing Administration have all experienced an increase in demand for meals and as a result have expanded current contracts with PCKatering. To help fill the demand, PCKatering has hired two current PCK students and one PCK alum to assist with meal production.
Our New Home
We broke ground on the new PCK building in May 2019 and our team has been working hard to create an amazing home for future students and the community. While we did experience a brief interruption to construction as a result of COVID-19, we have since qualified as an essential business, allowing construction to continue.
We are excited to share that the building is now more than 50 percent complete! The construction team has completed laying the building’s foundation and siding is now being installed. We are excited to see the completed building in late summer/early fall!
Thank You!
From everyone at PCK, we want to send a huge thank you for your ongoing support. We absolutely could not be doing this work without you! If you’d like to learn more about how you can support Philabundance’s COVID-19 efforts, click here.