Like many good things, Fresh Choice Kitchens (formerly the Vancouver Community Kitchen Project) started small, then grew fast. In the mid-1990s, the concept of community kitchens (CK) – groups that cook together in a friendly social atmosphere, sharing what they make – caught the imagination of several public-sector professionals in Greater Vancouver whose work included helping people better feed themselves. What could be a more sensible way to encourage people to improve their own health and nutrition, while also strengthening community ties?
In 1996 the Vancouver Community Kitchen Project was launched. Its base was a small office in the REACH Community Health Centre in East Vancouver. Public support came from Vancouver Coastal Health; generous corporate support was provided by what was then BC Gas (later Terasen Gas), and the Greater Vancouver Food Bank Society assisted with administration.
Those involved in the project’s early days often participated directly in setting up kitchens: finding locations and equipment, knocking on doors for support, running workshops for kitchen leaders (and other sessions for just about anybody who might want to learn about, say, canning, or the importance of proper handling of food to ensure safety).
Once a substantial number of community kitchens were up and running (there were about 25 in Vancouver by 1998), the focus of the Vancouver project shifted. Individual kitchens could now operate fairly much on their own, but there was a need for a central resource depot – a hub for sharing information among the growing number of community kitchens across the city and the province. The project became a provincial resource and to reflect this the name changed from Vancouver Community Kitchen Project to Fresh Choice Kitchens in 2008. Its goals include promoting the idea of community kitchens, helping groups to set them up, providing leadership training and serving as a centre for information exchange, whether what’s needed is a contact name for someone looking to join a kitchen in Fort St. John, or the recipe that a group of cooks in Courtenay needs to make a great lasagne that feeds 24.
Out of the project came a fine cookbook: Many Hands: Community Kitchens Share Their Best, an invaluable resource for CK groups. And a CK video was made, too. All the while there was cooking equipment to collect and redistribute, workshops to organize, and information to exchange. People needed to know about those activities, which was one reason the first Vancouver Community Kitchen Project website went online, the forerunner of the 2008 model you’re reading now.
Like a gangly youngster, the project outgrew things: its home base, for one. In 2002, a fine opportunity opened up when the Greater Vancouver Food Bank moved to a large warehouse east of downtown. Upstairs, there was a spacious kitchen that was under-utilized, and there was office and storage space, too. A deal was struck, and in September 2002, the project moved under the Food Bank’s roof. Late in 2006 the project’s financial structure changed, and the Greater Vancouver Foood Bank Society became its sole funder.
That upstairs kitchen has now been refurbished and now hosts leadership training and seasonal workshops on topics like canning, and using the freshest produce, as well as Level 1 courses in FoodSafe, the provincial certification program for those who handle food in places such as restaurants, cafeterias and institutional kitchens. Each year, Fresh Choice Kitchens workshops host close to 300 representatives from other organizations for which eating well is a major concern. They benefit from our expertise, and they share their own with the Community Kitchen brigade.
The CK movement has grown and evolved. Kitchens now often embrace those with specific health needs – for example, people who have diabetes or are at risk for it, and those living with HIV/AIDS. There are multicultural kitchens, too, and ones for those with low income, or singles who enjoy cooking with others. Plus kitchens in schools, kitchens in neighborhood houses, kitchens for vegetarians and ones for single parents. Is there a niche that’s been missed? (If so, call us – if you’d like help filling it!)
As the movement has grown, it has attracted more and more interest, as well as support at several levels. Community groups form its foundation, and now non-governmental organizations concerned with health matters (a prime example, the United Way of the Lower Mainland), as well as some government agencies now lend a hand to keep the kitchens cooking. The title of the project’s cookbook sums it up: It takes many hands.
