Burner Kitchen Setup to Serve Thousands of Meals a Day to Irma Victims- Grassroots Alliance

In response to the recent destruction caused by Hurricane Irma in Florida, Grassroots Alliance, (now Grassroots Aid Partnership) working with Camp TransFOAMation, Abraxas and the Catharsis on the Mall team are partnering with many natural products companies in a collective effort to alleviate the burden here. With crops decimated, work scarce and a housing crisis, it is important that we ensure that those farm workers who put the food on Americas plates have enough on their own.

Members of this same team helped lead the incredible New Waveland Café effort after Hurricane Katrina twelve years ago.

The collective is currently in Immokalee, Florida, which is an area that has been heavily impacted by the storm. Largely a migrant community, unfortunately, their needs often gets overlooked by state and federal support as FEMA cannot support ‘undocumented’ people.  The mission of the collective is to help and serve up to 6,000 high-quality meals a day as well as provide water, power, medical assistance, smiles and other crucial services. 

The kitchen began serving last week and everything is ready to begin receiving in-kind food donations and financial support. 100% of all donations will be spent directly on feeding people and will be organized through the Grassroots Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, procuring food from local food service distributors at discount. 

 The collective anticipates a multi-week deployment and a $100,000 approximate budget to serve free meals at less than $5 cost per meal (which is far less than Red Cross and other service providers).

In addition, local volunteers and supplies are welcome.  The collective is looking for folks that can help cook, clean and provide basic services. While they have basic infrastructure, they also need additional key equipment like disposable serving ware, generators, RVs, sleeping cots, radios, and other supplies that may be useful in this situation. 

Additional Article by PRNewswire on The Kitchen  

GrassRoots Alliance Hurricane Irma Relief Launch from Stunami on Vimeo.