WCK is first to the frontlines, providing meals in response to humanitarian, climate, and community crises. We build resilient food systems with locally led solutions.
World Central Kitchen started with a simple idea at home with my wife Patricia: when people are hungry, send in cooks. Not tomorrow, today.
Everyone knows that food is central to life and family all over the world. What we learned very quickly was that food is even more essential in a crisis.
It all began in 2010 after a huge earthquake devastated Haiti. Cooking alongside displaced Haitians in a camp, I found myself getting schooled in how to cook black beans the way they wanted: mashed and sieved into a creamy sauce.
You see, food relief is not just a meal that keeps hunger away. It’s a plate of hope. It tells you in your darkest hour that someone, somewhere, cares about you.
This is the real meaning of comfort food. It’s why we make the effort to cook in a crisis.
We don’t just deliver raw ingredients and expect people to fend for themselves. And we don’t just dump free food into a disaster zone: we source and hire locally wherever we can, to jump-start economic recovery through food.
After a disaster, food is the fastest way to rebuild our sense of community. We can put people back to work preparing it, and we can put lives back together by fighting hunger.
Cooking and eating together is what makes us human.
Since Russia unleashed a military attack on neighboring Ukraine. With ongoing threats of explosions & gunfire, more than 660,000 people have fled Ukraine—primarily women, children, and seniors—and are now seeking refuge in nearby countries. The journey out is long and arduous, with people facing wait times of up to 72 hours at border posts where they hope to cross over to safety.
In support of refugees escaping the violence, WCK began serving hot, nourishing meals in Poland within a day of the initial attack and are now set up at eight border crossings, as well in Przemyśl—a city receiving many refugee families.
In Medyka—a 24-hour pedestrian border crossing—the team is serving round-the-clock meals like Żurek, a traditional Polish soup made with white sausage, smoked meat, and sour fermented rye flour. Temperatures are cold, so we’re focusing on serving hot, comforting meals to anyone in need. In Hrebenne, Royal Catering set up tents to provide 1,000 plates of chicken with potatoes, along with cabbage, carrot, and beet salad for lunch.
Together with 26 restaurants, we’ve served over 41,000 meals so far and are continuing to expand our efforts in Poland. Supporting local group Master’s Catering, the team is setting up a kitchen in Krościenko where we will have the capacity to cook 10,000 plates of food each day.
Too often people only help themselves, but I believe we have to help each other.Wiktor, WCK volunteer from Jaworzno in southern Poland
While our Relief Team continues to explore the safest and best way to provide meals beyond the entry points in Ukraine, WCK is currently providing remote support to restaurants inside the country cooking meals for anyone in need. Currently, WCK meals are being distributed in five Ukrainian cities, including in Lviv where we’re supporting a Catholic charity, sending them flour to bake their daily bread. On Monday, the charity was able to expand their efforts up to the border crossing.
Upon arriving in Romania Monday night, WCK’s Relief Team headed to the Romania-Ukraine border to begin food distribution. While our team works to onboard restaurant partners, we will be bringing a local food trailer to prepare meals for people at the border, with hopes of delivering to the Ukrainian side as well. Additionally, we are working to provide hot plates of food for people staying in shelters and other locations temporarily housing refugees.
In addition to meals being served in Poland, Ukraine, and Romania, WCK’s first meals in Moldova were provided to children and families at the Chișinău Airport. Local restaurants served fresh plates of baked chicken over pasta with a tomato salad and bread. Working with local groups, we will be expanding our reach in the country as needed.
Our response has grown rapidly, and WCK teams are establishing meal distribution points in a total of six countries as we determine how we can best support Ukrainians arriving in Hungary and Slovakia. The number of people entering surrounding countries fluctuates daily, so we are going to continue to closely monitor the situation and are ready to adapt to best assist families in the coming days and weeks.
We are anticipating this becoming one of our largest and most complex emergency responses to date. WCK is currently serving tens of thousands of meals per day — as this crisis develops and rapidly evolves, that number could quickly grow to into hundreds of thousands, so our teams are working hard to be ready for whatever support is necessary. We will be adding additional food supplier partners and are also looking to set up community kitchens that are capable of cooking even more meals. WCK will expand our efforts within Ukraine as more shelters are established, and help provide meals to refugees as they resettle elsewhere.
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