More meals. More jobs. More impact with Union Station!
Hi Friend,
My name is Amanda, and I’m the Chief Operating Officer at Union Station Homeless Services. I’ve worked here for nearly 15 years, and part of my role is overseeing our Food Services team. I’m writing because I have news I’ve been looking forward to sharing for a long time: our new production kitchen is open and running.
For years, our team, led by Chef Marisa, has prepared meals at our Adult Center and Family Center. Last year, Union Station provided 700,000 meals to our community. Those kitchens have served us well, but we’ve outgrown them. Now we have a new full-size, professional space built to cook at a larger scale. Walking through it for the first time, I couldn’t stop thinking about everything we’ll be able to do here.
This kitchen lets us prepare all of our food in-house. That gives us more control over food costs and supplies, so every dollar goes further. It also gives our
volunteers new opportunities with room to welcome more of them. Simply put, we can serve more people, more reliably.
What excites me most is that this kitchen is also a classroom. It’s home to our Culinary Training Program, where participants get hands-on experience in a working commercial kitchen. They learn kitchen skills, workplace skills, and food safety. Each participant earns a Food Handler Certification, gets help with their resume and practices for interviews. We also connect them directly with employers who are hiring.
A steady paycheck makes it easier to find and keep a home. In this kitchen, people can build the skills to get there, and I can’t wait to see where they go next.
If you would like to see the space and meet the team behind it, please reach out to me at agreen@ushs.org.
There are other ways to be part of this, too. You can volunteer in the kitchen, donate, or if your grocery store or restaurant has extra food to share, partner with us to keep good food out of the trash and on people’s plates.
Thank you for being part of this work.
Warmly,
Amanda Green
Chief Operating Officer
Union Station Homeless Services
