WCK serves 12+ million meals in the month since Türkiye-Syria quakes
WCK’s Relief Team delivered our first meals in Türkiye shortly after two powerful earthquakes, followed by countless aftershocks, caused widespread devastation across the entire region. Just over one month since cooking our first meals, WCK has provided more than 12 million nourishing plates of food to communities across Türkiye and Syria.
Working shoulder-to-shoulder with local partners, our team is producing more than 500,000 daily meals that have reached over 750 distribution sites throughout both countries.
Our team initially set up its headquarters in Adana, the city where José and the Relief Team first reached after arriving in Türkiye. A few weeks later, our operations center was moved to Gaziantep, about 140 miles east of Adana, which leaves our team better placed to reach most of the hardest-hit communities. By the time Gaziantep became the center of our operation, Chef Karla, who has been part of WCK efforts since Hurricane María in 2017, had set up a Relief Kitchen in the city.
Ramazan is one of the local chefs who joined Karla in our Gaziantep kitchen. A chef with half a century of experience, Ramazan had set up his own soup distribution site just hours after the major earthquakes. Now, he brings his decades of experience and local expertise to WCK’s Relief Kitchen where he is an integral part of the team that is producing delicious local favorites like Ezogelin soup, bulgur, and chicken sote.
From day one of our relief effort, scouting teams spread out across the impacted region and identified the unique needs of each community. It quickly became clear that Hatay Province and its capital Antakya were home to some of the greatest needs. Our team set up a kitchen in the city that is proving to be a lifeline for many displaced people that had gone for extended periods without access to a hot meal.
The need for food is particularly acute in the outskirts of Antakya which is why our Relief Team set up distribution sites in communities like Subaşı. There, we met Mine who currently relies on WCK-provided meals since no shops are open in her neighborhood.
It’s the only warm food we eat everyday. It is really hard to find hot meals in the villages because there are no open shops around, and no access to water so it’s complicated to cook, plus people can’t work anymore.
Mine
As we always do, WCK is working with local chefs to provide culturally appropriate foods that can offer the most comfort. Hülya is one of the local chefs cooking in our Antakya kitchen. Alongside her children and husband, she managed to evacuate her building just moments before it collapsed. Unfortunately, several of her family members were not able to leave quickly enough and were buried in the rubble. Now, she is preparing meals for neighbors who also lost loved ones and their homes.
Ali is a chef who traveled from Istanbul to support our efforts in Antakya. Having lived through the earthquake that rocked the city in 1999, Ali knows all too well how important a lovingly prepared plate of food is in the aftermath of such a major disaster.
Local expertise is ensuring meals reach remote communities in need. Mert, an Antakya native, is part of our distribution team in Hatay Province. Despite being deeply impacted by the earthquakes, he has been working non-stop to get nourishing meals to families in hard-to-access villages throughout the province.
Difficult terrain and harsh winter conditions have added an extra challenge to relief operations. This became apparent in the mountainous region surrounding Elbistan, a city in central Türkiye that our Relief Team reached soon after the earthquakes. When we first arrived in this region near the epicenter of the major quakes, we found a group of local chefs operating a kitchen. Partnering with these chefs, and establishing two Relief Kitchens in the area, we quickly began producing thousands of daily meals, including for the countless families living in temporary shelters.
Our efforts in Elbistan were boosted after we set up our Deployable Kitchen Unit which is capable of producing tens of thousands of hot, daily meals for remote communities in this part of the country. WCK first built this deployable and fully equipped kitchen in The Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian in 2019.
Temperatures in Elbistan have hovered around freezing. To help people warm up, WCK’s Chef Mikolaj has been serving hot, nourishing bowls of classic Polish soups with a Turkish twist. Mikolaj, lovingly known as “The Soup Guy”, first worked with WCK in Poland last year to support Ukrainian families fleeing for safety. Upon seeing news of the earthquakes, he and his team drove from Poland to Türkiye to help the best way they know, by offering hope one nourishing bowl of soup at a time.
Also answering the call to support people impacted by the disaster was WCK Chef Corps member Jamie who joined the WCK team in Elbistan last month, and who also supported our #ChefsForUkraine and #ChefsForKentucky efforts. He has been cooking comfort food for impacted families and first responders, including children who are often surprised by all his tattoos.
It was great to see them giggling at my expense, because it makes them forget everything around them for a few minutes. Everybody wants something as simple as to feel a piece of comfort with a hot meal.
Chef Jamie
A little over 100 miles to the southeast of Elbistan is Adıyaman, where our team set up a kitchen in the facilities of a local culinary school. Sourcing local ingredients and hiring local chefs, we are preparing thousands of familiar and comforting plates of food each day in this predominantly Kurdish region, including for displaced families currently living in two large tented communities. Ilhami is one of the local students now working with our team. Having been displaced because of the earthquakes, Ilhami told our team that joining our #ChefsForTürkiye efforts gives him a reason to smile and helps him cope with the trauma of the disaster.
To support local recovery and provide the best possible meals, our team is working with food producers throughout Adıyaman and Adana to source fresh produce. By purchasing directly from local vendors and farmers we are supporting economic recovery at the same time that we provide the most delicious and nutritious food possible.
WCK’s Relief Team first delivered meals to communities in Syria within days of the earthquakes. In order to scale operations in the country, despite some complexities new to WCK, we partnered with IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation and Gift of the Givers—two NGOs with experience operating in Syria. Less than one week after first reaching Syria, we opened an operations center in Kilis, a Turkish town near the border where the IHH team is preparing and packing thousands of daily meals that are transported across the border into dozens of Syrian cities.
Many people in heavily impacted regions of Syria did not have the option to leave their devastated communities. This was the case for two-year-old Nur and her family in Jinderes. The family of six relies on humanitarian aid after their home was destroyed. Because of this, we have continued to expand partnerships with local restaurants to ensure that our teams are able to increase production near hard-hit areas.
Also in Jinderes, where winter weather has added another layer of complexity to relief efforts, our team met Abdurrahman, a 16-year-old who lost his home in the earthquake. Now, he has taken it upon himself to support his family and energizes our team with his infectious smile.
Alongside Gift of the Givers, we have provided tens of thousands of meals to displaced families that have sought shelter in the more than 15 encampments surrounding the town of Darkush. Here, we have also supported first responders and hospitals that were quickly overwhelmed by the influx of people requiring medical attention.
Now that WCK kitchens and our partners in Türkiye and Syria have established operations, we will begin to hand over much of the leadership of our response to local team members who have the expertise to ensure WCK is meeting the needs of impacted families.
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