We are fortunate to be in a space that once had a cafeteria and kitchen (The Acushnet Rubber Company). We are working on rebuilding the old (empty) kitchen and converting the old (1952) cafeteria into a dual use event space and dining room. We take no government money and we have never had a payroll. Building this kitchen requires us to raise this (one-time) money outside of our existing channels.
Central to our building a more caring community is our factory space. 50,000 square feet of youth philanthropy, giving and service. Over a thousand students a month check-in and go to work, inspecting, processing, organizing and packaging thousands of pounds of donations. Central to this process is food! Our pizza delivery costs are staggering. More than half the kids we see each week are food challenged at home.
Our feeding them lunch has become core to our mission and the best unintended benefit occurs. When the children mingle over lunch, they get to meet new people, share ideas and see others from a shared perspective; one of giving and service to others. This started us thinking about food, nutrition and how we could connect children to healthier food choices and connect our community gardening program to our own kitchen. That thinking got us thinking about the events we hold and how difficult it is for us to have everything catered, no matter that most of it is donated! We thought about our inability to hold even more events, because we are so beholding to outside resources for food service. We also started thinking about our greater community and how if we had our own commercial catering kitchen and event space we would have the capacity to help so many other local non- profits. Then the possibilities started becoming endless; cooking classes, nutrition classes, safe serve training, wait staff training, farm to table awareness, helping soup kitchens, using the event and kitchen space for special interest initiatives and groups.
A message from Jim:
Local celebrity chef, Victor Vieira, met with our after school philanthropy club, “The Sorority” at the Normandin Middle school and made dinner for the young womens, while teaching them about nutrition and best of all, how to feed a family healthy meals on a budget.
My recollection is Chef spent $36 on groceries and produce and made a healthy meal for eleven hungry teens! They learned a lot about nutrition and used a lot of math comparing fast food costs and healthy food alternatives.
Replicating this program with a hundred student groups and a dozen local chefs would be achievable if we had our own kitchen!
We are fortunate to be in a space that once had a cafeteria and kitchen (The original Titleist golf ball factory; The Acushnet Rubber Company).
We have developed a plan to rebuild the old kitchen and convert the old cafeteria into a dual use event space and dining room.
Financially we have the ability to support our operations, through local family and business donations and the profits from our own retail thrift store. We take no government money and have never had a payroll.
Building this kitchen requires us to raise this (one-time) money outside of our existing channels.
CONTACT: Jim Stevens 508-717-8715 x 111
We are truly 100% volunteer run and managed. For us to build this new Children’s Community Kitchen and Event Space we need to raise $250,000 though one- time, outside of normal channels, investment. Will you help us?
Student Volunteers
Volunteer Service Hours
Children Provided with Free Gift Packages
Pounds of Clothes Repurposed
The GiftsToGive
Philanthropy Factory
1 Titleist Drive
Acushnet, MA 02743
508-717-8715
contactus@giftstogive.org