Mama’s Kitchen, a San Diego non-profit organization founded in 1990 and now delivering 7,000 healthy meals every week to men, women and children affected by HIV/AIDS or cancer, is moving its home to larger premises. The new building, at 3960 Home Ave. in Fairmount Park, opens for business on Monday, Aug. 29 and will also house a sister organization, Mama’s Pantry, which provides an inventory of healthy foods for needy HIV/AIDS sufferers to pick up.
Says Mama’s Kitchen’s executive director, Alberto Cortés, “Our new industrial-sized commercial kitchen will expand our food preparation capacity and improve the quality and nutritional value of prepared meals, as well as menu expansion. Mama’s Pantry will be operating under the same roof as Mama’s Kitchen, allowing us to increase Pantry hours and expanding our offerings to now include perishable items, such as fruits, vegetables and dairy products.”
The building’s location and increased size will help the organization in its community mission. Said one volunteer, “The new, more modern kitchen will enable us to prepare fresher, better quality meals. It is also conveniently located to the I-5 and I-94 freeways, so it will be easy for delivery drivers and Pantry clients to get to the Home Avenue location from any part of San Diego.”
For 17 years Mama’s Kitchen had leased a 5,500 square foot church basement as its center of operations where all meals were prepared and packaged for delivery. However, a new home became necessary once the landlord notified the organization that its lease would not be renewed because of plans to sell the property.
As a result, the organization decided to buy and renovate a building for use as a permanent home that would be big enough to accommodate future needs and an anticipated increased demand for services. The necessity to move resulted in a silver lining, with the new 11,000 square-foot, two-story facility providing much-needed additional resources and capabilities.
Currently, says Cortés, “Approximately 370 hot meal clients are provided for on a daily basis. Eighty percent of these clients are people affected by HIV/AIDS. The remainder is people affected by cancer. Additionally, Mama’s Pantry, a program for people affected by AIDS that don’t qualify for our hot meal program, serves between 400 and 450 clients per month.”
Mama’s Kitchen is able to function only because of the generosity of many volunteers that donate their time. And while the increase in building size and projected services will result in more man-hours needed to run the operations, the organization already has many selfless volunteers.
Says Cortés, “There will be a slight increase in volunteer needs, but Mama’s Kitchen currently has over 800 active volunteers, so we don’t anticipate any dramatic increase in volunteer needs. We do anticipate implementing increased volunteer opportunities for Saturdays and Sundays.”
Cyril Reinicke, who volunteers once a week, added, “Mama’s feeds people from all over San Diego County three meals a day, 365 days a year. We even deliver on holidays. There isn’t another organization in San Diego that provides 100 percent nutrition at no charge to this wide of an area.”
As with growth in any non-profit organization, Cortés does anticipate an increase in fundraising needs. “Like any new undertaking of this magnitude, with increased capacity and growth comes the need for increased support. We have been blessed with the support of many San Diegans and will continue to pursue our community’s support.”
While there are plans to increase services, in the near term the organization is mainly focusing on settling in to the new building. Says Cortés, “We envision this building will provide a home for Mama’s Kitchen for many years to come. Our increased space and service capacity will allow for growth and evolution over time. Our current plans are to settle into the new facility and take full advantage of the opportunities provided by the facility.”
The new building is also intended to provide “adequate conference and classroom space to accommodate community meetings, volunteer orientations, training and education programs.”
While the new location will officially be open for business on Aug. 29, the organization does not anticipate any disruption of meal preparation or delivery service.
