One World Everybody Eats: Community Kitchens Aim to Feed the World

Mar 30, 2011 by Michelle LaBorde

WorldHunger.org: In 2010, 925 million people in the world were hungry.

Imagine a world where no one is hungry. Where children everywhere go to sleep at night and to school the next morning with food in their tummies. Right now, feeding the world is just a dream, but One World Everybody Eats Foundation (OWEE) is working meal by meal to make this dream a reality.

The OWEE is the evolution of One World Café in Salt Lake City, Utah.  One World Café founder, Denise Cerrata, opened her community kitchen in 2003 and started feeding her community, sometimes for free. One World Café served healthy, organic food like many restaurants do, but Cerrata’s vision included allowing people to choose their own portions and price the portions themselves. Cerrata asked customers to pay what they thought was appropriate. It’s a model that is unheard of in our profit-motivated culture, and it brought Cerrata and her community kitchen concept into the national spotlight.

It wasn’t just her “pay what you want” approach that brought attention. Cerrata also wanted to pay her workers a living wage, as well as provide volunteer options for those who would prefer a “hand up” rather than a hand out. So she gave customers the opportunity to lend a hand in some way at the café in exchange for meals. No one was turned away, however, even if they couldn’t pay and they couldn’t work. There was always a complimentary staple dish so everyone could eat.

Just eight years later there are 13 community kitchens open across the United States and dozens more in the planning stages. Three community kitchens have opened in Denver, where the OWEE plans to hold its 2012 annual summit and first collective fundraising event. Many kitchens maintain their own organic gardens or are partnered with organic farms, all follow Cerrata’s philosophy of reducing or eliminating food waste but, most importantly, they all provide meals to their community. The OWEE estimates that, together, community kitchens serve approximately 227,500 meals a year to community members. The number of meals provided will continue to increase as more kitchens bring more people to the table.

“All the kitchens are points of light and influence and inspiration,” says Cerrata. “Plus, we’re in a very critical time in our country and our world – more people feel insecure and food is security. People are talking more and more about the issue of hunger.” Bringing greater awareness to the issue of hunger is one of the goals for the “One World Everybody Eats Challenge.” During the challenge the OWEE is inviting the food industry to honor World Food Day on October 16^th “by offering something to eat for free. And to imagine if we could create a day where everyone could eat.”

To learn more about the One World Everybody Eats Foundation, find a community kitchen near you, and to order the “Community Kitchens Favorite Recipes” cookbook benefitting the OWEE Foundation, visit: www.oneworldeverybodyeats.com

To understand more about hunger today, go to: www.worldhunger.org