Cathedral Kitchen is the largest emergency food provider in Camden, NJ, serving more than 100,000 meals a year!
About Us
What We Do
Cathedral Kitchen’s mission is to help people out of food insecurity and champion their pursuit of stability and prosperity.
We provide nutritious meals for food insecure residents of Camden and the surrounding areas.
All CK staff are ServSafe certified (a national food safety and sanitation certification) to ensure the safety of our dinner guests.
- We serve dinner Monday through Friday from 3:15 to 5:00 PM and lunch on Saturdays from 12:00 to 1:00 PM.
- Food served at CK is cooked on the premises, plated and served at the table; there is no “soup line”.
- The hot meal consists of an entrée, a vegetable or salad, a side dish and a beverage.
- We also provide meals for local after school programs, groceries for low-income senior centers, and send donated food to local pantries, churches and soup kitchens that also serve our client population.
- In 2021 CK provided over 100,000 meals.
We provide Job Training
Happy graduates are part of the 400 individuals who have graduated from CK’s job training programs.
- Our Culinary and Baking Arts Employment Training Course operates concurrently for 15 weeks, three times per year. The program includes classroom instruction in culinary/baking arts, plus ServSafe certification training, like skills, financial literacy and interviewing skills training. Graduates are assisted with job placement and over 86 percent of graduates find employment during the first three months following graduation.
Social Enterprise
- CK operates social enterprises that help sustain our programming while also creating jobs in Camden.
- The businesses consist of the CK Catering and CK Dinner To-Go, along with a contract with Volunteers of America to deliver meals daily to Camden halfway houses and homeless shelters.
Supportive Services
CK's marketstand provides groceries every Wednesday.
- Our Empowerment Team meets with guests and assists them with needs such as obtaining ID and counseling.
- CK partners with several neighboring organizations and businesses that provide services during meal hours, such as housing & utility assistance, mental health & substance use treatment, HIV testing, and domestic violence advocacy.
- Our personal care service is offered every Monday. Guests can select items they need for the week (underwear, socks, soap, body lotion, feminine hygiene items, etc.).
- On Wednesdays, individuals and families can “shop” for free groceries through a choice-model distribution service at our Marketstand.
Who We Serve
Guests enjoying a meal.
- Demographic make-up of our guests is: approximately 45% African-American, 25% Hispanic and 31% Caucasian or other.
- 82% of our dinner guests are residents of Camden.
- 30% have not completed high school or earned a GED. Men outnumber women by about 3 to 1.
- Children make up about 12% of the guests; the elderly 20%.
- Many guests are homeless; others are living on welfare or SSI/SSD; some are employed but do not make enough money to pay for food, especially at the end of the month.
- Most guests walk or ride bikes to the Kitchen; some come via public transportation.
- According to census statistics, 39% of Camden’s population lives below the federal poverty level—over a third of the residents!
How We Do It
Volunteers on hand to help serve meals.
- Hundreds of people, from different faiths and backgrounds and from across the South Jersey area volunteer their time and talents each year, filling more than 9,000 volunteer slots to serve the daily meal and help keep overhead costs down.
- We receive donated food from a variety of sources, estimated to be worth over $805,000 per year!
- CK’s job training programs are supported by corporate and private donations. Area restaurants and chefs are pivotal in our programs’ success: local chefs make guest teaching appearances in the culinary and baking arts classes, and restaurants provide internships and employment opportunities for our students and graduates.
- Approximately 26 percent of Cathedral Kitchen’s budget comes from individual donations. The remainder is comprised of government grants (5%), corporate funding (6%), private foundations (16%), social enterprise income (53%), and proceeds from our annual fund-raiser (4%), Harvest for Hunger, a wine tasting and live auction held in the fall.