Cultivate Culinary is a nonprofit food assistance program based in South Bend, Indiana, that’s trying to make sure children eat. Cultivate Culinary’s founder Jim Conklin told KATV, an ABC News affiliate, that “Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system.” The program usually takes these already-prepared meals, adds a few things to them, and then creates frozen but ready-to-heat-and-eat meals for people in need.
Kids who need food assistance can usually get breakfast and lunch at school, but that doesn’t mean their families aren’t still having a difficult time putting food on their tables at home. The Elkhart Community Schools district in Indiana is running a small pilot program with Cultivate Culinary that will provide 20 students with weekend meals to take home with them on Fridays. The difference here is that Cultivate Culinary will use the school’s own food overages to create the meals that will go home with students.
The important thing to understand is that this food is not simply taken, frozen, and repackaged. It’s brought into a professional kitchen where Cultivate Culinary cooks turn that food into a variety of meals that can then be very quickly distributed or frozen for later reheating. Anyone in the community looking for work can also train at Cultivate Culinary for free, and gain restaurant experience.