Abbreviation | WCK |
---|---|
Formation | 2010 |
Founders | José Andrés |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C., United States |
Area served | Worldwide |
Website |
wck |
World Central Kitchen (WCK) is a not-for-profit non-governmental organization devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters. Founded in 2010 by chef José Andrés, the organization prepared food in Haiti following its devastating earthquake. Its method of operations is to be a first responder and then to collaborate and galvanize solutions with local chefs to solve the problem of hunger, immediately following a disaster. [1] [2]
Since its founding, the NGO has organized meals in the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Zambia, Peru, Cuba, Uganda, The Bahamas, Cambodia, Ukraine, and the United States. [3] [4] [5]
In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Andres visited the island and saw a need for distributing prepared food from central locations. WCK began preparing food locally in Haiti following the earthquake, and worked with local chefs to set up kitchens to continue making and distributing food. [6] They returned to Haiti in the ensuing years, helping set up a culinary school in 2015. [7]
In August 2017, WCK coordinated efforts with the American Red Cross and working in Houston, Texas following Hurricane Harvey. [8]
In September 2017 it led some of the disaster relief efforts in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, organizing a grass-roots movement of chefs and volunteers to establish communications, food supplies, and other resources and started serving meals. The group's efforts to provide assistance encountered obstacles from FEMA and government bureaucrats, but as Andrés said, "we just started cooking." [9] [10] WCK served more than two million meals in the first month after the hurricane. [11] [12] [13] It received two short term FEMA contracts and served more meals than the Salvation Army or the Red Cross, but its application for longer-term support was denied. [14] [11] WCK developed resiliency centers on the island, and installed a hydropanel array at a greenhouse in San Juan to provide safe drinking water. [15]
For his efforts in Puerto Rico, Andrés was named the 2018 Humanitarian of the Year by the James Beard Foundation. [16] He wrote a book about the experience called We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time. [17]
WCK operated in Southern California in Ventura County during the December 2017 Thomas Fire to assist firefighters and first responders and provided food to families affected by the fires. [18]
A kitchen to serve the Hawaiian communities affected by a volcanic eruption in June 2018 was set up. [1] In September 2018, WCK worked in South Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. [19] In November 2018, WCK and Andrés teamed up with chefs Guy Fieri, and Tyler Florence, and local Sierra Nevada Brewing Company to bring Thanksgiving dinner to 15,000 Camp Fire survivors in Butte County, California. [20] [21]
In January 2019, WCK and Andrés opened a restaurant on Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC, to feed federal workers that were furloughed during the government shutdown. [22] In September 2019, WCK and Andrés opened kitchens in The Bahamas to feed people in the wake of Hurricane Dorian. [23] In October they helped in Sonoma County, California, working with local chefs such as Guy Fieri, during the Kincade Fire. [24]
In early March 2020, the Grand Princess cruise ship was under quarantine near San Francisco due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [25] WCK in collaboration with Bon Appetit Management Company (a division of Compass Group), fed thousands of stranded passengers for approximately a week while logistics were being figured out. [25] Over 50,000 meals were served during this crisis. [25]
In mid-March 2020, Andrés transformed eight of his New York City and Washington, D.C., restaurants into soup kitchens to support customers affected by the COVID-19 crisis. [26]
In late March 2020 in the San Francisco Bay Area, WCK collaborated with Frontline Foods in order to provide an open-sourced effort to deliver meals from local restaurants to local hospital staff, many of which have been negatively affected by the COVID-19 closures. [27] It later assumed responsibility and management of the Frontline Foods operation. [28] [29]
During April 2020, Andrés partnered with the Washington Nationals and World Central Kitchen to use the team's stadium in Washington, DC, as a kitchen and distribution facility for free meals. [30]
In late February 2022, Andrés and World Central Kitchen responded to multiple locations, including in border areas and in conflict zones such as hard-hit Kharkiv, Ukraine, to distribute meals during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. [31] By March 2, 2022, WCK had opened 8 kitchens on the Poland–Ukraine border. [32]
In February 2023, World Central Kitchen set up mobile kitchens throughout Turkey and Syria following the 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquake. [33]
In August 2023, World Central Kitchen set up kitchens in Maui in relief of those in Lahaina and West Maui who lost family members, businesses and homes. They provided 6000-6300 meals per day with the help of volunteers.[ citation needed]
In response to the 2023 Gaza humanitarian crisis, World Central Kitchen has been contributing to food deliveries to the Gaza Strip. As of March 2024, it has provided more than 32 million meals. [34]
World Central Kitchen has supplied food to airdrop operations by foreign states, [35] as well as to the NGO Proactiva Open Arms performing maritime deliveries.
In February 2024, Proactiva Open Arms announced that their Open Arms tugboat would conduct delivery to the Gaza Strip towing a barge of food and water provided by World Central Kitchen. The ship had been reportedly stationed in Cyprus since 16 February. [37]
The president of Cyprus had proposed a maritime humanitarian corridor at a conference in Paris in early November, [38] and held conversations the following month with the Egyptian president and Jordanian king. According to Cypriot authorities, there were also "technical discussions" with Israeli officials. [39] In an interview with Tel Aviv Radio, the Israeli foreign minister said in December that "It can start immediately". [40]
On 11 March, the ship was in Cyprus awaiting departure, after Cypriot authorities claimed that permission had been granted. The goods had reportedly been checked by Cypriot officials with Israeli oversight. [41] [42] It contained "nearly 200 tons of food". [43]
The shipment arrived on 15 March at a beach south of Gaza City. [44] According to WCK, this was the first boat to reach Gaza in nearly 2 decades. [45]
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