Dear Editor:
As president of the Board of Directors of Chelsea Community Kitchen, I’ve had the wonderful experience of learning what’s involved in the challenge of running a local food business.
While most of you know Chelsea Community Kitchen for our unique and interesting consumer classes, at the core of why we offer these classes is to support local food businesses. We hope our classes help introduce some of them to consumers and showcase the talents found in our community.
CCK wants to educate consumers about the issues our farmers and local food entrepreneurs face and one of the best ways we’ve found is through offering a film for the community to view and discuss. Check out our calendar for the details about this year’s offering on Sept. 29, again co-hosted by Robin Hills Farm.
As an educational non-profit, we also provide educational opportunities for food businesses. Classes like the required food safety training and the recent craft pork butchery workshop provide opportunities for local workers to stay local for their training.
All these activities are the result of our dedicated volunteer board members, current and past, who have done all the work that other established non-profits would have staff to perform. The board has slowly built our capacity so that some of the daily administrative work and behind the scenes coordination is being done by a number of contracted workers, building toward having an employee. In turn, this is making it easier for the board to plan activities and seek the funding to expand programs.
Our most recent success was being chosen to participate in Whole Foods Community Giving day which resulted in funds for increasing contract hours and creating new youth programs.
More activities means more need for volunteers. I’m writing this to ask you to get involved in some way.
Here are a few things we need:
SAVOR fundraising event team: CCK has a signature SAVOR event planned this fall. A team of people will be meeting in the next few weeks to finalize details and make it happen. We’ll need workers at several steps—arranging for a Hops and Beer Tour.
Have ideas for potential programs? Join the program committee to create our calendar, identify potential instructors, and implement classes. Helping with setup and registration at classes lets you get the instruction for free.
Serve beer. We’ve got the opportunity to run a beer tent at the Robin Run in September and need volunteers over 21. You’ll get to attend the event for free. And we’ll need helpers at the dinner and a movie event, also in September.
Design graphics, write articles, update the website and lots of other jobs for people with skills in a variety of fields.
And most of all, we need.
New Board Members. We need 4-5 additional people to serve on the Board of Directors. Skills and knowledge in development, culinary arts, communication, and business management are all welcome. Fresh ideas and perspectives are needed as we move into the next stage of our growth.
Each of these positions require varying amounts of time commitment. The more positions we fill and the more volunteers to serve on the committees, the less time each will take.
Please consider how you can help Chelsea Community Kitchen in the next phase of its growth. Whether it is as a leader in one of these positions or a member of one of the teams or committees working with them, please join us.
For more information, contact us at [email protected] and one of our current board members will talk to you about your interest.
Monetary donations are always welcome, in addition or instead of your time commitment. Check our website www.chelseacommunitykitchen.org for instructions about donations.
Thank you for your support,
Kathy Carter
