A community kitchen is coming to Norfolk thanks to a $40,000 grant.
Nonprofit health system Bon Secours provided the grant to Five Points Community Farm Market to build the kitchen. The 375-square-foot space will be enclosed in a section of the market with a glass wall, according to the plans. The space will be available for rent by the hour, day or week.
Bev Sell, founder and general manager of the market at 2500 Church St., has been working with Bon Secours for the past five years to create a community kitchen. The idea isn’t knew she said, but the kitchen will fill a need in the area.
“They’ve been doing it in California and up in Northern Virginia, but nothing here in Hampton Roads,” Sell said in an interview. “I think we’re one of the first.”
Commercial donations for the kitchen include a convection oven, steamer, griddle top, cheese melter, smoker and steam-jacketed kettle for canning. The kitchen will be available to the public and will also be used for cooking classes for teens in low-income communities. Some of the grant funds will go to scholarship funds for teens to use the kitchen, according to a release.
“This is an exciting project not only because it is an innovative idea, but it also shows the power of partnerships when organizations join forces to benefit our citizens,” Mayor-elect Kenny Alexander said in a release. “I hope other community groups and businesses can learn from this.”
Sell hopes to have the kitchen up in about a month and a half, and open seven days a week, she said. Rates have not been determined. The space could serve small businesses or help launch projects and companies, Sell said.
Sell began planning a community kitchen after receiving calls from people who wanted to sell homemade goods in the market. Food sold there must be made in a kitchen certified by the Health Department, so Sell had to decline those requests.
“I get eight to 10 of those calls a month,” she said.
Gladys Medder, the mid-Atlantic director for The Community Builders, a nonprofit real estate developer, said the company is interested in using the kitchen. They could offer classes on healthy cooking to seniors in low-income communities, Medder said in a phone interview.
“We don’t have a kitchen space at the community center, just a small room with a microwave,” Medder said. “So the community kitchen would really help us a lot.”
After five years, Sell can hardly believe the kitchen is now on its way.
“I’m still a little in shock, because when you work so hard on something, you think it may never happen,” she said. “When I had the contractors in here yesterday, I realized that this is going to happen, and this is going to be so great. I think this is a real game-changer for our community.”
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