Little John's Kitchens Open House

media release: Little John’s is on its way to making a big impact in Madison starting this winter. We have a fundraising goal of $6 million for a community kitchen space to tackle food insecurity in the greater Madison area. We are already 1/3 of the way there, but we need the community's help to make it happen.

Our non-profit organization, temporarily located in Verona, is already making more than 5,000 meals per week to distribute amongst people experiencing homelessness, school meal programs, churches, food pantries and beyond. We keep getting requests from more and more groups to help serve their communities too, but we are at capacity.

Our current kitchen, located in the Verona Athletic Center, limits us in how much excess food we can take in and put out. We want to be able to help everyone, but we need the community’s help.

We have our eyes set on a new kitchen space located at 5302 Verona Road. This space would allow us to make more than 40,000 meals per week (that's 2 million meals per year). We are inviting members of the public to the space on Wednesday, Nov. 10, starting at 4:30 p.m. so they can see first-hand the amazing vision we have to help ALL members of our community. A guided tour starts at 5:30 p.m.

Many people may already know what Little John’s is, but what they don’t know is what our new space will be like. It’s not just a pay-what-you-can restaurant. Our new space will also include a training space for veterans and recently incarcerated individuals to take a paid 6-month culinary internship, gaining the skills to become a quality chef. After those 6 months are complete, they are welcome to continue cooking for us full-time or they can continue their culinary training at Madison college, which we will help set them up for.

Our new space will also include a massive commissary kitchen (think commercial kitchen space with large scale cooking production) where we will be able to take in excess food that gets thrown away from grocery stores every day and turn into chef-quality meals for everyone, a huge freezer space to help with our storage capacity, a community center for other nonprofits to fundraise and host events, gender neutral bathrooms, showers, a social worker on site to help connect people to resources in the community if necessary, after they have a hot meal made with love at a price that everyone can afford.

We are not like other nonprofits. We have a sustainable revenue model, and just need help getting into the kitchen space we have our eyes set on. We want to be able to give people sustenance, nutrients and a hot meal whenever they need it. Whether someone is experiencing food insecurity, is tight on money for the month, simply likes our feel-good food, or just left their wallet at home, we are here for everyone to be able to get a hot meal and never have to worry about where the next good meal will come from.

This is a community effort, and any help is appreciated. Here are a few ways people can get involved at Little John’s:

·  Donate directly to the website: https://www.littlejohnskitchens.org/donate-1

·  Volunteer: Little John's Kitchens Volunteers: Little John's Kitchens Volunteer Sign-Up (signupgenius.com)

·  Share your food story!

Sharing your food story on camera is an easy way to impact millions of lives. We will be sharing stories every week to help with our message and it would be great to hear from members of our community.

Little John’s needs your help. Reach out to today at Contact Us — Little John's