It just so happens that one of the BK board members has an association with the CFO of a international corporation, and said corporation apparently has a philanthropic budget that goes into eight (8) figures, and where the funds go is totally at the discretion of aforementioned CFO. A sizable chunk of that could earmarked for BK. The feedback from the other board member is that we need to be able to document supplying at least 300 meals a week. As there is no realistic way BK could document that kind of volume, we would have to solicit donations, ostensibly at a corporate level. This would lay the groundwork for soliciting the kind of donation that would allow us to get into a long term lease for a space that would function as food prep area, service area, office space (requiring the hiring of staff), with possible expansion into offering bathing/laundry services as well.
Again, there's no way we could hope to expand BK that quickly, so the idea is to reach out to other groups serving meals in the area on other nights, and explore the possibility forming a coalition, with the goal of creating the need for a local area community center that has different groups offering food on different days, with BK doing the main administration of the building.
One of the first things to do is take the step of moving from Tuesday to Thursdays; someone else named Marchall already provides food at Memorial Park (a few block north of Central Park) on Tuesday, and the dinner program at Villa Park nearby on Thursday nights has been defunded and there is no one serving food on Thursdays.
Initial candidates to approach include someone named Mike (who has a pretty unique story of his own) who feeds the homeless on Sunday nights. There's another group that serves food Monday nights at Grant Park, Marchall on Tuesdays, and BK would round out the schedule on Thursday nights for a total for four nights to start with room to expand.
The idea at this point would be that on a given night, a group serving dinner would be responsible for providing sufficient manpower to get the food prepped and served as well as volunteers who would facilitate creating an appropriate atmosphere during the actual meal time.
As for the type of building we'd hope to acquire by purchase or long term lease agreement, the following thoughts come to mind:
- a former restaurant/fast food operation; there will already be areas set up for food prep & food service, with the space to accommodate 75-100 people seated for dinner.
- a location within walking distance of public transportation, ideally more in a commercial area (so as to minimize the concerns of area residents)
- room to include office space;
- potential room to expand to provide ancillary services as funding and manpower permits;
We also need to identify potential allies to assist in getting past any concerns in terms of permits, what have you.
And of course, we need to contact the groups mentioned and also try to identify any other groups we can work with.
This is the vision at this point. We are looking for feedback/input to help us get our arms completely around this, not to mention some areas to gauge fixed costs for utilities, insurance/security, legalities, etc. If you have any to share please comment on this post, comment on our Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/barrys.kitchen.2016/
or send an email to: barrys.kitchen.2016@gmail.com or to BarryFChin@gmail.com
