MEAL PRODUCTION

Meal Production and Distribution to Partner Charities

As students in the first six culinary training classes

(January 2007- August 2008) worked to achieve their own self-sufficiency, they also served the community.  Each class produced meals for students at East Fort Worth Montessori School, a Tarrant Area Food Bank partner charity where the Community Kitchen was housed.

Since then, a new 2,500 square-foot kitchen and classroom facility has been built in Tarrant Area Food Bank's warehouse.  

In the new kitchen, students and kitchen staff, with the help of volunteers, convert surplus prepared and perishable foods donated by grocery retailers into frozen meals. Volunteers spoon food into meal containers and shrink-wrap the filled containers. 

The Food Bank provides these meals to its partner charities that distribute them to families and individuals.

Community Kitchen students also have opportunities to prepare food for special events at the Food Bank.

In addition, the students whose course dates include February participate each year in the Food Bank's signature fundraising event, Empty Bowls—An Artful Luncheon to Fight Hunger.

The students prepare a soup and host their own table along with the professional chefs and eating establishments that donate their soups and desserts for the popular event.