By Evan Cameron | Associate, Development Writing
Founded in 2010 by Chef Jose Andres, World Central Kitchen (WCK) is first to the frontlines providing fresh meals in response to crises. Applying our model of quick action, leveraging local resources, and adapting in real time, WCK has served more than 450 million nourishing meals around the world. At WCK, our guiding philosophy is: wherever there is a fight so that hungry people may eat, we will be there. When disaster strikes, our Relief Teams mobilize with the fierce urgency of now to start cooking and serving meals to people in need. By partnering with organizations on the ground and activating a network of local restaurants, food trucks, or emergency kitchens, WCK serves fresh meals to survivors of disasters quickly and effectively.
Last December, WCK launched our Giving Tuesday fundraising campaign to help provide nourishment—as well as comfort, hope, and dignity—to communities around the world impacted by disasters. Since then, WCK has served more than 64 million meals in 8 countries to families affected by humanitarian, community, and climate-fueled crises. On behalf of the entire team at WCK, we are grateful for your continued interest in supporting our emergency responses, and we hope you share our pride in all that we have accomplished together. We are pleased to share summaries of several of our responses below:
The Middle East: Since October 2023, families in the Middle East have been reeling from a devastating conflict that has caused profound loss of life and forced millions of people to flee their homes. In Gaza, relentless shelling and a ground offensive has killed tns of thousands of civilians and forced more than a million Palestinians from their homes. The violence, widespread infrastructure damage, and ensuing evacuation orders have severely compounded the dire humanitarian needs that were present prior to the initial outbreaks of fighting. To provide support, WCK’s local team has established 4 large-scale Field Kitchens and a network of over 85 community kitchens, providing more than 126 million meals and counting to communities in Gaza. Following the recent shifts in the conflict, WCK is working tirelessly each day to increase the flow of vital humanitarian aid into Gaza and maximize the cooking capacity of our kitchens to help support families as they return to their homes in northern Gaza. So far, our local Relief Teams have added a new Field Kitchen and several community kitchens to our cooking network in the north, distributed thousands of seed kits to help restore damaged crops, and introduced a mobile bakery capable of cooking nearly 40,000 loaves of bread each day. While the situation is extremely difficult and the needs of the Gazan communities we serve are constantly shifting, WCK is committed to continue doing everything possible to bring hope and comfort to the people of Gaza the best way we know how—warm, nourishing meals.
In Lebanon, WCK is supporting communities on the southernmost border with Israel who are not able to evacuate despite the shelling and rockets. As the conflict in the region has escalated in recent weeks, the number of internally displaced individuals in Lebanon has increased to an estimated one million or more people. In response, WCK has added new recipient locations and increased distribution from an average of 6,000 to 50,000 meals per day, continuing to prioritize southern Lebanon where the need for support is the greatest. While the immediate need for acute hunger support has subsided in Israel, our teams are poised and ready to provide emergency relief to Israeli communities as needed. To date, WCK has served more than 10 million meals in Lebanon and over 1.7 million meals in Israel.
Ukraine: WCK has supported communities impacted by conflict since February 2022. Lack of food access has been most severe in the regions along the frontlines of conflict in the east and south where communities are caught between the fighting. WCK has served food aid to families across Ukraine affected by the increase in missile and rocket strikes, as well as the renewed Russian offensive in the east of the country. We have also supported liberated communities—some freed from occupation in late 2022—that continue to suffer relentless bombardment. Our locally-led Emergency Response Team ensures that WCK shows up in challenging circumstances and serves hot meals prepared by local restaurant partners, as well as food kits, seed kits, and water to Ukrainians experiencing acute support needs. When providing support, WCK’s experienced Culinary Team in Ukraine uses traditional, culturally-appropriate recipes in the hope that familiar flavors bring extra comfort to families enduring their darkest times. During the December holiday season, for example, our local teams dressed in festive costumes to distribute sweets, gingerbread houses, and mimosa salads—a traditional Ukrainian holiday dish—to help spread cheer and a sense of normalcy to communities along the frontlines. In total, WCK has served over 282 million meals in Ukraine since February 2022.
Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton: Hurricane Helene made landfall along Florida’s Big Bend region on September 26 as a powerful Category 4 storm, causing significant damage in coastal communities with record-breaking storm surges and 140 mph winds. Further inland, widespread flooding isolated communities from access to vital resources. With our teams prepositioned in the south, WCK began providing much needed food and water relief across Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and North Carolina immediately after Helene passed. Hurricane Milton swept across Florida as a Category 4 storm two weeks later, impacting many of the same communities. Through two large-scale WCK Field Kitchens in Asheville, NC and Tampa, FL—and a network of 100+ restaurant partners—our teams prepared and distributed meals to people affected by the storms. We also provided tens of thousands of gallons of water daily in western North Carolina, where the water supply chain was severely disrupted. With power restored and people shifting back to their usual routines, WCK concluded meal service in Florida and Georgia in late October, and in Tennessee in-mid November. In North Carolina, we continue to provide warm meals to thousands of families still reeling from Hurricane Helene’s destruction. WCK has distributed a total of more than 2 million nourishing meals and 2.2 million gallons of drinking water in response to both hurricanes.
Cyclone Chido: In mid-December, Cyclone Chido directly hit Mayotte, a small overseas French department with a population of about 320,000 people, as a Category 4 storm with winds up to 225 km/h (140 mph). Entire communities were devastated and communications down across much of the island, along with electricity, water, and basic services. WCK’s Relief team constructed a FIeld Kitchen and partnered with more than a dozen restaurants across Mayotte, where cooks prepared warm, comforting meals for people without access to food. In addition to hot meals, WCK provided food kits to families who were able to cook for themselves. These kits, which were assembled with locally sourced ingredients, supported a family of five for several days. Each kit includes fruit, milk, flour, and cooking essentials like charcoal. We also distributed ingredients and donated a majority of the procured kitchen equipment to community kitchens, helping sustain existing meal preparation efforts. WCK served more than 4 million meals to families in need.
LA County Wildfires: Beginning on January 7, multiple wildfires broke out and began wreaking havoc across several major residential areas in Los Angeles County. Fueled by strong Santa Ana winds, the blazes proved very difficult to contain for local firefighters and first responders, compounding the destruction inflicted on local communities. In response, WCK has activated a strong network of over 100 local food supplier partners—including restaurants, food trucks, and farmers—to serve comforting meals to families affected by the fires. In addition to providing warm meals to impacted communities, WCK has opened a series of farmers markets where residents can collect fresh, locally-grown produce for free. Our teams are also distributing grocery store gift cards to restaurant workers and owners who lost their sources of income to the blazes. While the fires themselves have been fully contained, the lasting effects of the destruction are still being felt by communities throughout the area who remain on the road to recovery. To date, WCK has provided more than 1.3 million meals across LA County, and our teams are committed to continue providing emergency food and water relief in the area for as long as we are needed.
World Central Kitchen is grateful for your continued support of our work. General operating support is the backbone of WCK, as unrestricted funding provides our teams with the flexibility needed to respond to crises on a global scale with the fierce urgency of now. Thank you again for your help to make our mission to feed hungry people a reality. Together, we helped bring comfort, hope, and dignity to crisis-affected communities around the world, one warm plate of food at a time.
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