Now that we don't have OCF's deadline of the winter solstice for posting an end-of-year update, this is coming to you a little bit later than it has the last few years - it still seemed valuable both to take time to reflect and to share some of those thoughts. Our fourth full year is drawing to a close, and what a year it's been. I (Eileen, longtime member of the team and primary do-er of admin tasks) find myself grateful beyond measure to the many, many people who have contributed to keeping this kitchen going - in time, gas, funds, advocacy, creativity, community, and so many other ways.
What we did this year
This year, as in past years, we used volunteer time in a borrowed kitchen to turn rescued food and donated funds into nourishing meals delivered to people in Minneapolis who need them - primarily folks living in tents.
This year, we made more meals than we did last year. As of tonight (we serve meals every Monday and Tuesday, regardless of holidays!), we’ve served 24,444 meals in 2024. That’s over 2,000 more meals in 2024 than we did in 2023, and at an average cost of $1.17 each. The money you all gave here is a big part of what makes that possible: while we're doing everything we can to divert edible food from the waste stream, to be creative about what we make and how we do it, and to accept any sources of free food we can find (more on all of that below), it still costs money to buy things like to-go containers and bottled water. Thank you! Our final meal for the year! As with all of the meals we served this year, there was a main dish (chicken stir-fry with rice), a fruit side, and a dessert. Another 2024 update - at the recommendation of a friend who has experience both working in marketing and living in an encampment - is that we've added our logo to the labels we put on each meal.
Hot meals that nourish body and mind is what this group initially came together to do. And that’s the way we’ve used all our donated funds. However, it’s not the only thing we’re proud of this year - we’ve also been able to work as a team to extend more types of care to more people, outside of using donated funds. A big one has been getting more connected to our neighborhood: when we realized we were seeing a LOT more foot traffic for produce giveaways on Sundays, we had conversations with our new neighbors about what else they needed. Then we did what we could to make it happen: a handful of us tapped our networks, especially neighborhood Buy Nothing groups, to find people who could contribute school supplies and warm clothing.
We also had a teammate experiencing homelessness become a significant part of the crew, and at his request, a handful of other CK folks worked with him on a crowdfund to secure a year of stable housing. (He now has one more month in a short-term housing situation and something permanent almost certainly lined up starting in February, but between four months' short-term housing and the GFM fees, he's not quite financially there - he really needs to meet this goal by the end of January in order to ensure he has a whole year's rent covered and can focus on recovering from health challenges caused by police brutality, coercive labor practices, and medical racism.)
Isaac's rehousing fund is close to its goal!
The ups and downs
What has made all of this possible is that we've continued to lean harder into the power of...us. Community Kitchen as a group is both a larger and tighter-knit group of people than we were a year ago, operating increasingly less hierarchically and more horizontally, and we continue to build and deepen relationships with other parts of our community. Our most significant relationship is with our hosts and partners at First Congregational Church - we've now cohosted several meals and collaborated on a holiday toy giveaway, and more church members than ever have been both financial supporters of Community Kitchen as well as part of the cleanup crew (thank you!). We also would never have made it this far without TC Food Justice, the organization that connects groups like ours with expiring and overstocked food. This year they celebrated diverting over 1 million pounds of edible food from landfills since their start in 2016, and several thousand of those pounds have passed through our doors to become soup, stir fry, fruit salad, applesauce, and so much more!
We've been able to do some food sharing with zAmya Theater and with other groups doing distribution of food and survival supplies: Southside Kwes, Community Bridge, the Supply Depot, Mask Bloc MSP, Southside Food Share, and others. We're deeply grateful to have exchanged surpluses as usual with Calvary Food Shelf and with CANMN, and to have received some beautiful gifts: 150 pounds of cheese shipped to us from Cheese Brothers, a small mountain of paper products and nonperishables from the now-closed Sugar & Salt, 660 pounds of food from families of Northrop Elementary School (their third annual food drive on our behalf!), and all of our kitchen knives sharpened for free by Eversharp. Starting to sort donated food from Northrop Elementary - three years in a row they've asked us for a list of items we truly need and then done their best to stick to it, which is the ideal way to run a food drive!
Knives returning from Eversharp better than ever!
2024 was also a year of significant challenges - to CK in particular as well as on both a local and national level. For us specifically, losing OCF as fiscal host and being in financial freefall for months created a lot of uncertainty, and I am more grateful than I can say to everyone who helped us build a little financial buffer before that transition and who contributed to getting us back on track once we had a new fiscal host. I am deeply grateful also to PWGD, a tiny team that decided to step into fiscal hosting for us and other local groups formerly hosted by OCF.
On a national level, the Supreme Court's ruling in Johnson v. Grants Pass that people can be criminalized for sleeping outside even when no other options are available was a pretty crushing blow, and has led directly to a number of cities passing legislation that fits any moral definition of cruel and unusual, if (apparently) not the legal one. Homelessness has risen by double digits nationwide, as power chooses profit over people - rents continue to rise as wages do not, and that isn't going to change without significant and organized action.
Zooming back in, 2024 has been a year of ups and downs for Minneapolis as well. This year saw repeated bulldozing of encampments, erecting of fences, and filling spaces with concrete. All of this causes trauma and none of it does anything to get anyone closer to stability; making homelessness less visible to people with privilege doesn't actually solve the problem, nor does filling public spaces with broken concrete. Both nationally and locally we’ve seen more violence directed at people who are unsheltered.
That said, there are good moves happening locally - Camp Nenookaasi is fundraising to buy land (landback is not a metaphor; please consider supporting or sharing!). AYU has done some incredible work building yurts and keeping them stocked with ice and water in the summer and firewood in the winter. And the Minneapolis City Council saw some tangible victories this year with the passing of an ordinance that we do, in fact, need to track what the city spends in destroying encampments, and with a number of other budgetary wins.
What’s on the horizon?
We will, of course, continue to do what we've been doing for the last four years, and to continue to strive to do it better (not necessarily to serve more meals - endless growth is capitalist nonsense - but to continue to broaden and deepen our community and connections). Moving into 2025, the challenge (for CK as a group and for all of us!) is to approach fear - of facing rising oligarchy and fascism, of ecocide and climate catastrophe, of ongoing COVID and looming threats of H5N1, of continued US support for multiple genocides, and more - with hope and with action. Hope is not the same as optimism - there is no room for blindly believing it will all be okay no matter what we do - but a choice to not give into despair, to lean harder into one another, to take action. “How much good could be accomplished if everyone, everywhere committed to doing some form of mutual aid work today?” asks Schuyler Mitchell in a powerful reflection on hurricane relief in her community. “And how can we think strategically about galvanizing the communities of which we are already a part? Start small. Start now.” (Hat tip to Kelly Hayes’s newsletter for bringing that article and countless other good ideas across my path - if you’re not already following her in written or podcast form, I can’t recommend it strongly enough).
In 2025, I hope you’ll share my commitment to grieving what you need to and facing your fears rather than burying, numbing, or consuming them away. I hope we can fortify each other in so many ways: meeting your neighbors - does your building or block have a group chat? Finding a group to organize with (for me, that’s Unidos MN - feel free to leave comments to share other options!). Joining a union and/or or supporting that process for others. Masking up in public spaces and considering air purification - COVID isn’t gone, and spreading a potentially disabling illness to the people around us isn’t love or solidarity. Sharing our tools, skills, time, and resources. Practicing giving as well as receiving care, learning and teaching, imagining and listening. Growing something, or something new. Resisting technology that destroys ecosystems and drives slavery and proxy wars in mineral-rich countries. Doing anything you can to disrupt the status quo(thank you to Mariame Kaba for that list and for so many other flashes of insight and inspiration), to refuse the ruling class narratives of rugged individualism and expensive isolation, to support others and be supported into realizing how much power we have when we come together, when we refuse to be isolated into having no time for anything other than daily survival. Life with each other is inconvenient and messy and necessary and beautiful, and at the end of the day, all we have is each other and our relationships.
“People instinctively knew after the election that one of the things we need to face this is each other, and they reached out to connect, support, and sometimes plan. I know the pandemic and the internet have isolated us, but even sociable connections can become safety nets in crises. Bill McKibben famously answered the question "what's the best thing I can do as an individual" with "stop being an individual; join something." We are only many if each of us shows up, and if we are many, we are a force. ...
Even if the fascists tell you you can't have anything at all, you can have a lot they can't touch, and the bigger you dream the better you defy them. Gus Speth writes, “New, dreamed-of worlds will not compete yet in today’s practical politics. But they are the first blueprints of the future, the playing fields of radical hope, the dreams that stuff is made of.” We have practical work to do, and lots of it, but it will be anchored by those dreams.
If they make you furious, let that fury be a power; if they make you sad, let that sadness be empathy for what is at risk and who is suffering; if they make you exhausted, rest and come back; whatever they make you, you also make yourself in a thousand ways every day. And you're not alone. You're a gift but be sure to give it.”
We are only many if each of us shows up. You’re a gift but be sure to give it. See you in 2025.
