This week, Signal donated 100 masks to DCCK to assist their work getting food to communities in need during COVID-19.
In times of crisis, it is important for community leaders to take care of vulnerable populations – and sometimes that requires a significant shift in how services and support are delivered in the community.
DC Central Kitchen, an organization that provides culinary training and fresh food to underserved communities, had to shut down a portion of their services. However, they quickly rebooted to expand their offering of healthy food to disadvantaged populations in the district. This is helping to meet the growing demand for food during the pandemic.
Since mid-March, DCCK has directly provided over 260,000 individual meals, setting up to-go meal distribution at public schools and other sites and increasing the size of its regular shipments to local shelters and nonprofits. The organization has also delivered over 35,000 units of fresh produce and healthy snacks to corner stores in food deserts through its Healthy Corners program and has partnered with Monumental Sports to provide meals for DC first responders and hospital workers.
Mike Curtin, the CEO of DCCK, outlined his organization’s pandemic response strategy on a recent podcast. Curtin said that the organization delivered 43,000 meals during the week of March 23rd, a 7,000 meal increase from the previous week. He estimated that this number will grow as more people are affected by the crisis.
All of us at Signal Group are inspired by DCCK’s work to fight food insecurity. When we heard they were in need of face masks, we enlisted Signal spouse Cynthia Shirkey to add to her roster of mask-making and she quickly manufactured 100 new masks.
Cynthia has already created thousands of facemasks for community members and other organizations. We applaud volunteers and community organizations like DCCK who are helping keep food on the talks of DC residents.