What Happens When R2D2 Gets H1N1?

 

 Our country’s orphanages, shelters, food banks, schools, camps and other non-profits dependent on working dishwashers, ranges, walk-ins, reach-ins and more cannot afford equipment malfunction.  For Luke, the efficiency of R2D2 was a luxury that technology could restore.  For non-profits that are feeding the homeless, the hungry, after-school students or battered women – clean, safe and efficient foodservice equipment and supplies are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

 

When a major appliance stops working or needs to be replaced or even when small wares and cookware have reached the end of their use life, somehow the E&S needs to be found that will sustain the value, function and efficiency of a non-profit to its community.  It’s kind of like if R2D2 got H1N1; he’d be down but not out.  Ensuring fully functioning equipment is key to sustaining a not-for-profit’s socially beneficial foodservice program.

 

 Enter Cooking Up Better Lives and its partnering organizations such as the Community Kitchen Project in Teupasenti, Honduras, or the Food Bank of Houston and the Greater Houston Restaurant Association.  These organizations are stepping up to find non-profits in need and then work with philanthropic dealers and manufacturers to get top functioning E&S to organizations in need.  In turn, many of these organizations are empowering individuals with skill sets that give them the ability to work in restaurants or simply help other families in need.

 

 Since its inception, Cooking Up Better Lives (www.cookingupbetterlives.org) has brokered donations of nearly $250,000 in E&S, in large part due to the financial and in-kind support of corporations, individuals and foundations.  Now, in 2010, high-level projects that will bring increased recognition to dealers and manufacturers for their commitment to the communities will be taking place in pilot sites across the country.  

 

 Later this year, through partners in the media like TSR, Cooking Up Better Lives will be announcing a minimum $100,000 kitchen renovation/build out that will set up a vocational training program for battered women and troubled teens as they prepare to enter transitional housing.  This kitchen will help to prepare meals for hundreds of individuals at childcare and after-school programs, as well.  This undertaking comes on the heels of helping organizations from South Carolina to Colorado and from Mexico to Honduras.  You can make a difference.  Email town_meeting@comcast.net to find out how your voice – and contributions – can be heard.

 

 Perhaps R2D2 doesn’t qualify for the H1N1 vaccine.  Your participation in Cooking Up Better Lives and similar outreach, however, could be the shot in the arm that could make all the difference.