WCK commits $1 billion to families impacted by the climate crisis
The WCK Climate Disaster Fund is World Central Kitchen’s $1 billion commitment over the next decade to support communities impacted by extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis.
Climate crisis-fueled extreme weather leads to most of the disasters to which WCK responds. In 2020, we spent more than $250 million feeding communities in the United States and around the world across a range of disasters including multiple hurricanes and the Covid-19 pandemic.
We’re seeding the Fund with $50 million today for immediate disaster relief and to invest in long-term solutions that help build resilience for communities on the frontlines. Our goal is to innovate and develop models that can be replicated across the world – and supported by the only people who can truly scale solutions to states, countries, and continents: our political leaders.
WCK has witnessed first-hand the crisis of climate-triggered hunger in our own hemisphere, a crisis that is driving hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees across the continent. The more that people have fresh food where they are, the less they will need to look for it elsewhere. That means supporting communities to feed themselves and helping farmers to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
We have three areas of focus:
- Feed hungry people in the immediate aftermath of climate disasters.
- Build resilience in frontline communities. We will expand our Food Producer Network that began in Puerto Rico and recently launched in The Bahamas, the US Virgin Islands, and Guatemala. By investing in local food producers with grants, training, and market access, we can empower communities to be more self-sustainable and resilient in the face of future disasters. In 2022, we will launch the WCK Climate Disaster Corps, built upon our newly-created Chef Relief Training curriculum. This intensive course teaches culinary students, cooks, veterans, and others the WCK model so they can be ready to respond in their own communities. We will also continue to develop Community Relief Centers, a philanthropic partnership with The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Foundation. These kitchens and community hubs are built in regions of the world prone to climate disasters, including Puerto Rico and Dominica.
- Change the systems that leave people hungry and thirsty. We need to start improving access to nutritious food far before disaster strikes. WCK is expanding our policy efforts to work with local and state governments to take the successful models we have developed and scale them up.
