It’s not just about a full belly; Bridge House’s Community Table food program to be revolutionized by grant to purchase commercial kitchen

Boulder is a town of foodies – award-winning restaurants, natural food grocery stores, organic farms, and a bustling scene of food entrepreneurs fueling a more than 500 million dollar industry. But Boulder is not free from hunger. In Boulder County 1 and 8 people are living in poverty.

For the more than 1300 clients we see at Bridge House each year hunger is a day to day reality. For many the only meals they have access to are the ones we serve through our Community Table program. We take this responsibility seriously and strive to provide the most hearty and nutritious foods possible in every serving knowing it may the only meal eaten by that person, that day. We also see the more than 60,000 meals we serve each year as an opportunity to promote community, engage people in services, and, most recently, to create jobs for our homeless clients seeking employment.

We are thrilled to announce that Bridge House has received an extremely generous grant to revolutionize our Community Table meal program. In Spring 2013 we will unveil our very own, state of the art commercial kitchen designed to streamline meal production, improve nutritional quality, and integrate job training for our Ready to Work trainees. This investment will allow Bridge House to not only improve the execution of our more than 60,000 meals served each year but to become an integral part of Boulder’s natural food scene with the express purpose of both improving the health of and empowering the most needy in our community.

For more than a decade Community Table has provided Boulder’s homeless and working poor hot meals and a safe place to enjoy them.  Each day individuals with no other source of food come for breakfast and lunch at our Bridge House location and dinner at one of our generous partner locations. Thanks to the support of partner organizations such as Community Food Share and Boulder Food Rescue we have been able to offer abundant choices and thanks to the amazing support of volunteers we have been able to prepare and serve meals at a very low cost. Thanks to the generosity of faith communities such as First United Methodist Church, Mountain View United Methodist Church and St. Johns we have had safe, convenient places to serve.

Bridge House’s new Community Table Culinary Arts Program will build on this extremely important foundation. Areas of growth will include moving from two cooking days per week to five for more “real time” cooking and integration of fresh foods including local produce and proteins; increased participation from Ready to Work trainees to work in the kitchen to both earn a wage as well as train for permanent job placement in the food service industry; and opportunities to become more connected to the natural foods industry in Boulder through training collaborations, volunteer opportunities and more.

We are extremely grateful for this unprecedented opportunity. We expect to be fully operational by late Spring. To learn more contact [email protected]

 

How can you support this effort?

Stay tuned for more information about volunteer opportunities

Make a donation to support the new culinary arts job training for Ready to Work trainees in the new kitchen.

Donate to Bridge House

 

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