Happy New Year from Columbia County Recovery Kitchen! We’d like to start 2024 by sharing some of our growth and accomplishments during the past year.
In January 2023 we were preparing and delivering 1000 meals weekly throughout Columbia County. As the year progressed, the need for healthy, nutritious food continued to rise as did our commitment to meet that need. In addition to the constantly expanding list of households requesting our services, we were asked to create and deliver meals specifically designed to address children served by both Columbia Opportunity’s Head Start classrooms and the Hudson Youth Center. With expanded meals contracted for the Hudson Youth Center we will start the new year providing more than 1500 meals per week.
In order to accommodate the nutritional needs as well as taste preferences of preschoolers as well as children aged five through seventeen, additional menus must be created each day. Planning as well as prepping, cooking, and packaging three different menus five days a week necessitated our hiring a second chef to work alongside Chef Tommy Carlucci. This fall we welcomed Chef Kathy Silliman to Columbia County Recovery Kitchen. When asked about her new position she described, “It’s really such a dream to have a career where I can make a difference and do so much good for the community. What we are doing is so important, and it’s uplifting. I’ve been meeting so many wonderful people who have such big hearts.”
The addition of these meals also meant finding more volunteers for our kitchen. Chef Tommy explained, “Cooking for three different groups means creating three varying meals each day. For our home delivered meals the menus basically remain the same. For the Hudson Youth Center though, we are feeding kindergartners through eighth graders, and teens as well. Many are willing to experiment with new foods, so we find ourselves serving similar though not identical meals to both these two groups. But the Head Start program is very different. We’re feeding three and four year-olds, and at that age they often don’t want different food groups mixing or touching. We’ve learned to send them deconstructed meals on separate trays so they can construct their own plates: one tray for vegetables, another for protein, a third for starch, and a fourth tray for fruit. They build their plates themselves, and they are happier this way.” After a pause he added, “Designing three menus each day with various considerations in mind can complicate things. But the feedback we receive from both the Hudson Youth Center and Columbia Opportunity’s Head Start offers us guidance and direction, so we feel as if we have a handle on things. As long as our communication is flowing, our kitchen flows too.”
When asked about working with CCRK, Liz Yorck, the Director at Hudson Youth Center, replied, “Our partnership with CCRK is very important. At first they delivered one meal a week, now it’s one meal and a snack five days a week. So we are able to feed kids and teens, giving each one meal and one snack each day, five days a week. We are so grateful for this partnership, and Carole Clark and I have the same goal, to be certain everyone in the community is fed healthy meals.” Calvin Lewis, the Assistant Director added: “Tommy is a great soul. He’s always finding ways to be inclusive of the needs of the various diets we have to address. He is caring and supportive, and we are excited to continue this fruitful collaboration.
Tina Sharpe, the Executive Director of Columbia Opportunities described working with CCRK, “We were looking for an organization that our Head Start program could partner with. And of course, we wanted to be certain they provide nutritious food, because kids won’t develop to their fullest potential without proper nutrition. So that’s what this relationship between Columbia County Recovery Kitchen and Head Start is really all about. We began serving the CCRK meals in September. The feedback we give Chef Tommy and Chef Kathy is listened to and acted upon, they address food allergies and the other food restrictions the children may have. It’s presented family-style, so the kids create their own plates and eat with their classmates in small groups. Our goal is to develop a classroom community, and our CCRK family-style meals support that. We are really so happy to be working with Columbia County Recovery Kitchen, our hope is to expand this program to our other classrooms in the near future.”
Carole Clark added, “We’ve grown in ways I’d never imagined when we first started. I’m so excited to see what comes up next!”
Thank you for your ongoing support which allows so many of our Columbia County residents access to the food they need. Your generosity is making a difference. Here’s to our continued work in creating a healthier Columbia County in 2024!
