You voted, you shared, you re-tweeted and told your friends. Thanks to your support, Philabundance Community Kitchen (PCK), our culinary and life-skills training program for adults with low- to no-incomes, took home the second-place prize in the Philadelphia Foundation’s Key to Community grant making contest in the ‘Economic Prosperity’ category. The $100,000 grant will go towards programmatic and operating costs such as expanding PCK’s enrollment, staffing and educational opportunities after it moves in spring 2020 to its new home.

Thanks to generous funders, including the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the City of Philadelphia, a 12-million dollar capital campaign is funding PCK’s own facility, as the 14-week program has outgrown its current location in a city-owned shelter. The Key to Community funds will allow PCK to offer students expanded curriculum, new equipment, allow for more students to attend the life-changing program and support a larger staff from whom to learn.

Students and staff will also send more food into the community thanks to the Philadelphia Foundation’s grant, which will enhance PCK’s budget for healthy ingredients allowing up to two million meals to be made and provided to the community.

Neighbors supporting neighbors is the common denominator in PCK’s success as a program and its success in the Philadelphia Foundation contest – and it’s a common denominator in the overall fight against hunger, too. Although the Key to Community contest is over, there’s more work to be done. Please continue to spread the word about Philabundance’s fight against hunger or get involved yourself.