WCK In 2021

Insurrection in Washington, DC

On the night of January 6, Washington DC was placed on lockdown as the National Guard and other first responders worked long shifts to keep the Capitol and community safe. José and the Relief Team immediately began cooking to provide hot meals for teams working through the chilly nights that left the city – and country – on edge.

Spain’s Snowstorm Filomena

In response to Madrid’s historic snowstorm Filomena, WCK’s Relief Team started cooking even before roads were cleared. Our delivery team followed the snow plows for 10 hours, bringing meals to hospitals, snowed-in seniors, and other vulnerable communities.

Earthquake in Mamuju, Indonesia

When a 6.2-magnitude earthquake hit Mamuju, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, WCK’s Rima, who first joined us in 2018 as a translator, led a team to prepare more than 100,000 meals – including this spicy eggplant – for families evacuated from their homes.

Supporting Healthcare Heroes

New York City hospitals have been some of the hardest hit by the Covid pandemic. Throughout a very snowy January, we provided 30,000 meals every day for nurses and doctors at 15 public hospitals throughout the city, cooked by our restaurant partners.

Texas Freeze

Snow, ice, and freezing temperatures swept across Texas in February, causing massive power outages and leaving millions without heat. We quickly called on our restaurant partners statewide, including Burns Original BBQ in Houston, to provide some relief for seniors and families in the dark.

Resilience in Dominica

Construction begins on WCK’s first Community Relief Center – a joint philanthropic partnership with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s nonprofit Archewell Foundation – on the island of Dominica. Three other centers, including in Puerto Rico and India, are also being planned.

Mississippi Water Crisis

Residents in Jackson, Mississippi found themselves without running water following a widespread winter storm. Working alongside the city of Jackson, Jackson Public Schools, and local restaurant partners, the WCK team served fresh meals and distributed hundreds of thousands of bottles of water.

$150m Disbursed to Local Restaurants

One year since the pandemic shut down businesses across the United States, WCK has paid small, local restaurants a total of $150,000,000 to provide fresh, nourishing meals to neighbors impacted by the humanitarian crisis. Our pandemic response and support of local restaurants continue to this day.

Hurricane Eta & Iota Recovery

After the devastation caused by November 2020’s back-to-back hurricanes Eta and Iota in Guatemala, WCK saw a need for continued support. We partnered with the World Food Programme to assemble and distribute thousands of food bags with ingredients for families to cook with as they continued to deal with the storms’ aftermath.

Migrant & Refugee Families in Tijuana

March saw nearly 19,000 unaccompanied children cross the US-Mexico border, and families filled tents near the California border. The WCK team doubled our number of daily meals from our kitchen in Tijuana, which was first established in late 2018.

Volcano Erupts on St. Vincent

La Soufrière on St. Vincent erupted dozens of times in April, at times sending ash 26,000 feet into the air. Establishing our kitchen at a local culinary institute and cooking alongside both students and instructors, we served hundreds of thousands of meals across the island.

Economic Crisis in Beirut

Riz a Djej—grilled chicken and potatoes served with rice and a tomato, garlic, lemon, and oregano sauce—was on the menu from WCK restaurant partners Batchig & Mayrig for families impacted by the economic crisis in Beirut, Lebanon. WCK first activated here in response to the explosion of 2020, and we have continued our support.

India’s Covid-19 Surge

At the peak of India’s Covid-19 surge due to the Delta variant, the country was reporting more than 400,000 infections a day. WCK joined forces with Chef Sanjeev Kapoor to prepare nourishing meals for healthcare heroes working around the clock to combat the virus.

Airstrikes in Gaza

Following violence and airstrikes in Gaza, WCK partnered with Anera to provide over 100,000 fresh meals to 15,000 individuals, many who lost their home. The WCK team met Islam, a nine year old who was asleep with his parents and five siblings when a bomb hit their home. As we delivered them meals, Islam’s father told us “We lost our modest kitchen utensils and our stove. We couldn’t even salvage a single cooking pot—the entire kitchen is gone.”

Surfside Building Collapse

Partnering with local food trucks starting early in the morning until late into the night, WCK provided fresh, nourishing meals to emergency crews working tirelessly in search and rescue efforts following a shocking condo building collapse in Miami, Florida.

WCK Awards 39 FPN Grants in Puerto Rico and Guatemala

Daniel Pérez Moro is one of 39 small-scale producers to receive grants through WCK’s Food Producer Network (FPN) in Puerto Rico and Guatemala. Daniel, a leading bee advocate in Puerto Rico, used his grant to purchase a storage facility to keep his equipment safe during storms, as well as 100 hive boxes that will increase honey production at his apiary and help maintain the island’s bee population at healthy levels.

Flooding in Germany

Western Germany saw once-in-a-century rainfall inundate entire towns, destroying infrastructure and leaving many without water and electricity. Supporting 10 food trucks across 11 locations, WCK provided more than 125,000 meals for impacted families, volunteers working to clean up, and emergency crews.

13 Food Producers Join FPN in The Bahamas and USVI

Austin Walker of Walker’s Seafood was among 13 food producers across The Bahamas and US Virgin Islands who received a Food Producer Network grant that he used to purchase a new motor for his fishing boat. With the new motor, Austin can safely fish further and longer, allowing him to catch a wider variety of Bahamian fish and shellfish.

California’s Massive Dixie Fire

Dry heat, wind, and an ongoing drought led to the rapid spread of California’s single largest wildfire, the Dixie Fire, which burned more than 960,000 acres over the course of three months. While scouting meal needs, we found a tight-knit community who were using their own resources to provide meals for neighbors in need. WCK supported these efforts, helping small businesses across Quincy cook for families and first responders in Greenville, Taylorsville, and nearby communities.

Relief to Resilience: WCK in Haiti

Just hours after the 7.2-magnitude earthquake struck southern Haiti, WCK’s Chef Mi-Sol mobilized students at our culinary school, École Des Chefs, in Port-au-Prince to provide immediate food relief for neighbors in need. WCK’s deep roots in Haiti allowed us to build a robust series of Relief Kitchens – in total, we cooked and served over 680,000 hot meals for families in Les Cayes, Jeremie, and beyond.

A Warm Welcome for Afghan Refugees

At Dulles Airport, just outside Washington DC, a family fleeing Kabul arrived an entire week after leaving Afghanistan, traveling on multiple buses and planes to reach their new home. WCK welcomed them and 60,000 other Afghan refugees with freshly prepared halal restaurant meals. In Spain and Qatar, the WCK Relief Team and Qatar Charities mobilized to cook comforting halal meals for families waiting to continue their journey to the US.

Louisiana’s Hurricane Ida

Before Hurricane Ida made landfall on the Gulf Coast of the US as a powerful Category 4 storm, the WCK Relief Team had prepared sandwiches to serve as soon as it was safe to do so. The hurricane left communities devastated with more than 1 million people living in the dark. Cooking from our Relief Trucks and the New Orleans Culinary & Hospitality Institute, we served hundreds of thousands of meals by boat and car to residents in the city and surrounding bayou and river parishes.

Border Crisis in Del Rio, Texas

Nearly 16,000 asylum seekers – primarily Haitian families – began sheltering under a bridge in Del Rio, Texas after traveling across the US border from Mexico. Cooking until the camp’s closure, we distributed over 100,000 fresh meals cooked both from our Relief Food Truck and partner restaurants, all served alongside fresh fruit – along with baby food and diapers for families with young children. Throughout the year, WCK has served meals to migrant and refugee families in multiple locations near the southern US border.

Volcanic Eruption on La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands

Erupting for the first time since 1971, the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma has been active since September, forcing more than 7,000 people to evacuate and covering almost 3,000 acres of land in lava. Together with local partners, the Relief Team is distributing thousands of daily meals to families and emergency crews; to date, we’ve delivered more than 100,000 meals to people in need.

Santurce Farmers Market Turns One

As a part of WCK’s Resilience programming in Puerto Rico, our Santurce Farmers Market brings local food producers together to provide fresh, nutritious produce to families in low-income urban areas in San Juan. The twice-a-month market features many of our Food Producer Network partners offering local items like fish, vegetables, and honey, while also hosting special events and workshops.

Clean Cooking Study Expands in Guatemala

Recruitment for 100 new households to participate in WCK’s Clean Cooking Study began in Guatemala. Our Clean Cooking program aims to improve the human and environmental health of communities in the Caribbean and Central America who still cook primarily with wood or charcoal—fuels that accelerate climate change and deforestation—by empowering them to transition to cleaner, safer, and more environmentally friendly fuels.

WCK Direct Expands to Los Angeles

WCK Direct grew out of our emergency response through the pandemic to address food and nutrition insecurity while also supporting small, local restaurants in the US. Los Angeles is now the fifth city—and counting—where families can use the text-to-order platform to order free restaurant meals for pickup or delivery.

Nearly 3 Years of Cooking in Colombia and Venezuela

Extreme poverty, violence, and political instability has caused 6 million people to flee Venezuela in recent years, making the situation one of the worst refugee crises in the world. Since 2019, WCK has served millions of hot, fresh meals to support Venezuelans both in the country and on the long road out—and we’re still cooking every day.

Kitchen Skills & Safety Trainings

More than 170 school cooks completed WCK’s Kitchen Skills and Safety program this year. Through our chef-led trainings, cooks like Olga have learned to prepare safe and nutritious meals that have already benefited over 80,000 students across Central America.

Launching the Climate Disaster Fund

Climate crisis-fueled extreme weather leads to most of the disasters to which we respond, and as the situation intensifies, WCK is looking to develop models that build resilience in frontline communities and create long-term solutions. Expanding on our existing efforts, we launched the $1 billion Climate Disaster Fund to support communities impacted by the climate crisis.

Flooding in British Columbia

Sheree is excited to pick up bananas at WCK’s food distribution supporting First Nations communities struggling with food access following widespread flooding in British Columbia, Canada. A series of atmospheric rivers caused severe road damage, leaving many communities isolated. WCK’s Relief Team responded by providing fresh, organic produce to over 600 households.

WCK’s Inaugural Chef Relief Training

Sixteen chefs completed our Chef Relief Training at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan, gaining the skills and knowledge needed to lead community-based responses to local disasters. Participants learned to cook arroz con pollo in large paella pans—a technique the WCK team has used around the world.

11 New Food Producers in Guatemala

Through WCK’s Food Producer Network, we provided grants to 11 projects in Guatemala. In the latest round of new program partners is Proyecto Tierra Verde, a farm which produces organic vegetables and serves as a learning center for food producers in the region. With WCK support, the farm will build new greenhouses and acquire equipment that will allow for a 50% production increase in the coming months.

Kentucky Tornadoes

Kane and his family drove five hours to Mayfield, Kentucky to cook for families impacted by rare, deadly tornadoes. With their truck, two WCK Relief Trucks, and over 25 other local food trucks and restaurant partners, we provided tens of thousands of hot meals to impacted communities and emergency teams each day.

Graduation in Port-au-Prince

Despite all the challenges they faced throughout the year—including the August earthquake—29 students completed the professional culinary arts training program at École Des Chefs, WCK’s culinary school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. This group of young chefs is now set to pursue careers in the country’s hospitality sector and stand ready to help their communities in the event of a disaster.

Typhoon Rai hits the Philippines

More than 4.2 million people in over 425 municipalities were impacted by powerful Typhoon Rai. Power and communications remain down for many communities, making relief efforts incredibly difficult. WCK quickly began partnering with local organizations starting to serve fresh meals, and we have so far helped to provide tens of thousands of meals to families in need.

Learning Opportunities on St. Croix

The Food Producer Network provided grants to 17 projects in the US Virgin Islands and The Bahamas, including a second grant to Yvette and Dale Brown of Sejah Farm on St. Croix. Building on the success of their first grant—used to improve cold storage facilities on the farm—Yvette and Dale will use the new funds to establish a learning center, providing local food producers with capacity-building opportunities, including WCK-hosted webinars.

3,500+ hours of FPN Capacity Building & Networking

In 2021, WCK’s Food Producer Network focused on expanding the capacity building and networking opportunities offered to both grantees and the general public. Through this approach, FPN has expanded far beyond the countries where we offer grants and has benefited food producers and food-related businesses from 33 countries around the world.

WCK in 2021

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Dear friends,

January