Biography
The first thing you’ve got to know about me–all I ever wanted to do was open the greatest nightclub in the world.
At age 13, after watching the movie Casablanca, opening a nightclub and using the power of music to change the world was all I thought about, day and night. Right out of high school, I dove into the “biz” and worked at it as if it was college. I hit pay-dirt when I landed a job at the Childe Harold, a small Washington, DC nightclub where both Bruce Springsteen and the Ramones played their first gigs in DC. Over the next 10 years, I worked my way up in the ladder—editing a local music magazine, managing clubs, booking bands and seeing every great band that rolled through DC. I was having a great time preparing to use the power of music to take over the world, when, on a rainy night, I found myself tagging along with my soon-to-be wife, Claudia, and others from a church group to feed people who lived outside, on the streets of DC.
Up until that point in my life, I had admired what nonprofit groups were doing, but I had managed (purposely) to avoid volunteering . . . which is why I still refer to myself as a “recovering hypocrite.” There I was talking about changing the world, but I had to be corralled and pushed into helping people in my own backyard.
Going out on a truck (different congregations took turns preparing and serving meals at sites near the State Department, the White House and the World Bank) was an amazing thing, but I was immediately struck by the fact that the group we were working with had purchased the food we were handing out (at a very expensive grocery store)…and the men and women we were serving were dutifully standing outside in the rain while we stayed in the warm, dry truck.
I thought to myself, “This group is buying food to give it away, while the businesses I grew up in throw away tons of food every day.”
But while the thought of all that food being thrown away bothered me . . . I was more intrigued by another thought—many of the people I served that night looked like they had the potential to do more than wait in line, night after night for free food … could we develop a system that could feed the line, but shorten it at the same time?
“Talk is cheap” as my mother used to say, so I decided to do something about it. Joining the concepts of using “existing ingredients” to help empower the “homeless”, I came up with a plan. Excited, I met with church and civic leaders and proposed a business model that would safely collect all the surplus food from the city’s restaurants, hotels and caterers AND provide food service training to people on the street who lacked job skills. If this was done, I suggested, people on the streets would get better food, service groups would spend less money, restaurants would have less waste and unemployed people would get good jobs, which would boost city revenue via payroll taxes. Everybody would win.
To my surprise, I was met with blank stares and outright skepticism … including a comment that I was “naive to think you can train the homeless”?!?!
Recognizing that nobody was going to take up this gauntlet, I “temporarily” postponed my career in the nightclub business and started the DC Central Kitchen.
After months of appealing to numerous would-be donors and grant makers, in November of 1988, I finally received a $25,000 grant from the Abel Foundation which allowed me to buy a refrigerator truck. That’s how on January 20, 1989—-the day George H. W. Bush was inaugurated President of the United States—I officially opened DC Central Kitchen.
Using my show-biz training, I merged one high-profile event–the inauguration–with the DC Central Kitchen’s opening. As you can imagine, recovering food from Inaugural galas and then delivering it to shelters the next day garnered world-wide publicity for the concept. But more importantly, it also dispelled the urban myth that it was “illegal” for food to be donated, which opened to door not just for us, but for any group, in any city that followed. Think about it—if the President of the United States can donate food, what excuse could anybody make to throw away good food?
After that, the Kitchen, and other “community kitchens” that followed, rapidly began to pick up all sorts of support!
Since then, and working with an amazing team, we have transformed the DC Central Kitchen into a multi-million dollar annual operation, which hauls in close to two tons of food per day, converts it into 4,500 meals, which we deliver to partner agencies that serve seniors, kids, people in shelters, and folks in recovery/addiction programs throughout the DC metro area. Since its opening, the Kitchen has distributed over 23 million meals and helped over 800 men and women gain full-time employment.
Over the years, 40 other communities have opened similar kitchens, each boasting similar impact.
In 1997, the Kitchen established Fresh Start, a social enterprise catering/contract food business that hires graduates from the training program, purchases local food and allows us to raise our own scratch, making us less dependent on grants.
In 2001, after realizing that thousands of school cafeterias stood idle, we founded what became the Campus Kitchens Project, which uses these kitchens to channel student power to prepare food collected on campus, or locally, which is then delivered to partner agencies right near campus.
But, just as the Kitchen has evolved, so have I. I’ve felt it was critical for the organization to insure that everyone on our team has a voice, and that daily leadership, as well as developing a long-range vision is equally shared. That’s why my role has evolved, as I continue to move forward to push the boundaries of traditional charity.
You see, as much as I love DC Central Kitchen, I realized long ago that we could never solve the problems of hunger and poverty with leftover food…but we could sure do a whole lot more if we acted in concert with others. That’s why I wrote a book called Begging for Change, which gave me a wider audience for my views. After a trip to India to study the Indian Independence Movement, I came up with the idea of the Nonprofit Congress, which brought hundreds of nonprofit colleagues to Washington in 2006 to begin to find common ground, and a unified voice for the nonprofit sector. And since then, I have never stopped working to re-define the role of philanthropy in America, from both inside the sector and out.
Now I travel throughout America, speaking about the Kitchen, social enterprise, nonprofit unity, political engagement and the changes we’ll have to embrace to get us closet to the prize.
Like many of you, I see that our nation faces serious challenges—challenges that, I believe, will demand more coordination and cooperation between government, businesses and nonprofits in communities from coast to coast–challenges that will also demand a greater understanding of the social and economic opportunities we could muster if we move beyond the limited notion of .com/.org.
Most importantly, I know that we have to move beyond the notion of simple charity. The resources of America’s nonprofits must be maximized, our results measured and our methods modernized. In EVERY town, in EVERY state we must begin to stand together and work for something much, much different–real change. I am beyond ready to face this new challenge. I hope you will join me!
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