Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of HOPE's Collaborative Community Food Kitchen project was and continues to be the low income, food insecure individuals for whom we provide daily, warm and nutritious lunches, regardless of their ability to pay. This grant and matching funding of over $356,000 enabled us to build the first 'pay what you can' restaurant in Virginia. Since completion of the development of our Open Door Cafe kitchen/restaurant and opening in November, 2018, we have seen the numbers of mission driven meals steadily increase. This has been exacerbated by the effects of the 2020 pandemic, when we shut down the sit-down restaurant experience at the ODC and continued with daily to-go meals. At March, 2020,after being opened for16 months, we were averaging 75 lunches per day, with 74% of the diners paying less than the suggested price of $8 for a meal. We completed the fiscal year at June 30 very much in the black, with $1.55 per plate served in net income, or $32,314--a fact not many restaurants can share this year. We served a total of 20,911 meals, with 14,398 of them (69%) being subsidized or free meals. Donors provided us $81,000 in plate purchases, and another $160,000 in grants from government (including this USDA NIFA final year), churches, businesses and individuals. In the last two months under the USDA NIFA grant, through August 2020, our mission numbers have steadily increased, reflecting an increase in food insecure households in our service area of Wythe and Bland counties in southwest Virginia. We have served a total of 40,870 meals since opening 22 months ago, with 62% or 25,619 of those meals subsidized through donors contributions. Changes/Problems:Through March, 2020, or month 17 since opening the Open Door Cafe, there were no major changes or problems encountered. We had achieved a sustainable balance of donating customers/subsidized meal customers. With the shutdown, while we continued with 'to-go' meals only, we went from about 20 volunteers daily to around 4-5. And since March, the number of meals being served daily has been steadily climbing, as it has around the country with all food security projects. The 50-some members of One World, Everybody Eats who run community cafes similar to Open Door are all experiencing the same challenges--increased mission work, and decreased financial support. Open Doors numbers climbed from 82 per day at June 30, to nearly 150 now one quarter later. The per plate donation has decreased from $3.91 at June 30, to $1.59. And where we finished the operating year at June 30 with net income of $32,314 or $1.55 per plate, we are now in the red for the quarter ending September 30. However, HOPE--the parent non profit over the Open Door, received an extremely generous and unexpected miracle gift in August of $1 million in unrestricted cash, which will be used to provide operating reserves for both HOPE's housing and other food programs, including Open Door. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Open Door Cafe has provided numerous training and professional development opportunities since opening. We have hosted dozens of community college students from Wytheville Community College who need 20 hours volunteer work for a scholarship. We also have provided community service work opportuntities for over 50 individuals referred to us from either Juvenile Court or General District Court, with some needing to fulfill over 150 hours of community service. High school students needing community service hours for National Honor Society have served and worked at the Cafe. We have hired as a front of the house manager a formerly homeless woman who was volunteering with the Cafe several days each week, and we also hired another individual who came to us to perform community service hours as a new grant writer for our organization. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We use social media to broadcast our daily dashboard summary, usually in monthly form, to show our stakeholders how many meals were served, how many were subsidized, how much plate donations were received, how much other donations came in, expenses, percent of locally sourced meals, cost-of-goods served, and net per plate income, or loss. This dashboard is on our Facebook page, as well as website: www.opendoorcafewytheville.org. As a non profit, with so much community support, we believe it vital to provide this information, and to continue to raise awareness of food insecure individuals here. We also provide an annual report, which summarizes our Cafe performance, and we reference the good work of the Cafe in HOPE's quarterly reports and weekly e-blasts. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our first goal, the establishment of a commercial kitchen with a dining area, was met with great success. We opened the Open Door Cafe in November, 2018, and began serving warm, chef-created, locally sourced meals with a volunteer staff averaging 18 per day. We purchased nearly 50% of our food served from local producers, and through the 22 months from opening to the end of August, we served a total of 40,870 meals, with 62% of those meals subsidized through the generosity of others who donated what they could. The total number of daily meals has climbed from an average of 85 for the first few months, to 135 meals per day now. Through the pandemic, the need for this kind of alternative food delivery model has been exemplified by the steady increase of total meals served, along with the increase of the number of meals subsidized each day. Here in month 23, 89% of the total meals served are subsidized, an increase from the first month or two when the number of subsidized meals was right at 50%. Goal number two, providing education on nutrition and healthy meals, was provided through 2019-20 with a Community Nutritionist, Ruphina Okeyo, who worked with patrons of the Cafe. She also conducted individual surveys, to learn more about the eating habits of food insecure households. In addition, we tracked the purchase of food for the Cafe which came from area/local producers (as defined by being within 60 miles of Wytheville). We have consistently purchased all of our ground beef from a producer in Smyth County--Laurel Springs Farm, and much of our fresh greens and produce from a local aggregator--Va Field Goods. Through June, 2020, the first twenty months of our operation, 38% of all of our food purchases were local. Goal three--providing revenue opportunity for local ag producers has been consistently filled through our purchase of locally produced, grown and valued added food products, as described in the prior goal section. While we have provided enhanced revenue opportunities, we are not directly involved in any training for local producers. At the present, we are working on a new program with the area mental health agency to bring a horticultural therapist on board to assist with raising green house produce, on site, for use in the Cafe, and to give those receiving a subsidized meal a chance to 'pay' for their meal. Our final goal has been perhaps the most exciting while also intangible result, of creating a new network and community within the Wythe and Bland county foodshed.Before the pandemic shut down changed the way we served meals from the sit-down, inside normal setting to strictly a 'to-go' menu, it was the daily exchanges over the meal which gave our project distinction. In the words of one of stalwart volunteers and regular Friday dishwasher, and a local Methodist preacher, "there is a whole lot more than food going on at the Open Door Cafe."
Publications
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2018
Citation:
www.opendoorcafewytheville.org
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Our NIFA Community Food Program project, the Open Door Cafe opened on Nov. 1, 2018, and since then, our daily lunches and Wednesday evening meals have been nothing short of outstanding. As a pay what you can restaurant, though we call it 'donate what you can', through nine months of operations, we have served a subsidized, locally-sourced, chef-prepared meal to 6,825 individuals. This is in addition to the other 9,086 meals served to our 'donors'. We track this daily ratio of donating customers--those paying more than the suggested price of $8 per plate, to those receiving a subsidized meal for less than $8, all the way down to $0.00. Cumulatively, this ratio is running 57:43, meaning 57% of our customers are supporting 43% of our customers. We are averaging 85 meals per day, so to put this into perspective, some 36 indivdiuals are receiving a subsidized, healthy, meal every day. One story--during the federal government shut down this past winter, when SNAP benefits for February were issued on Jan. 21, we realized the looming problem/opportunity. Sure enough, by mid-february, this ratio flipped, and for the last two weeks we saw this ratio go to 40:60, or higher. By March 1, the invisible hand reverted the ratio back to what it's been averaging, 60:40. The takeaway is that our project was serving the intended mission, by preparing a warm, healthy meal, to food insecure individuals. While this may not have been a long term sustainable situation, it did underscore that as a non profit, social enterprise, we need to continue fundraising above and beyond the revenue generated in the Cafe itself. Through these first nine months, we have successfully raised $69,000 to complement the $85,000 raised in the Cafe itself. Changes/Problems:If there have been problems with our project, it might be associated with the daily hard work lining up 20 or so volunteers to make the Cafe function. This is our manager's primary responsibility, which has surprised us a bit in how much time this takes. As our first manager left us after six months to move away to get married, our second/current manager was hired with much more awareness of the role of volunteer management, and we are happy to report he is excelling at this job. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Along with at least 20 volunteers who we've tapped into every day at the Cafe, we have also been able to work with three individuals in job training programs. They are being paid through People, Inc's Workforce Development program, and are putting in 35 hours per week with us. We are looking to add a drive through coffee hut adjacent to the Cafe, which would ideally use a job training individual, coming out of incarceration or recovery. This project we hope to add in the fall of 2019, with proceeds from the coffee hut plowed back into the Cafe to further our sustanability. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We post monthly dashboard financials at the Cafe, on our social media, website and in our quarterly newsletters. More importantly, HOPE's Executive Director, Andy Kegley, presented at the annual One World Everybody Eats conference in New Orleans in January specifically about the NIFA grant, New Entry, and data on the Cafe's operation. Through this year, financial and development data have been shared with at least four other communities interested in starting ne pay what you can restaurant projects. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period, we anticipate continuing the successful and high impact, high visibility work of the Open Door Cafe. We look forward to reporting on outcomes from our Community Nutrition program, and also new financial outcomes from the construction of our drive through coffee hut.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The major goals identified in HOPE's Open Door Cafe have been met and exceeded through our first nine months of operation. Goal one was to establish a commercial kitchen and dining facility to expand a two-day-per-week soup kitchen into a viable , pay-what-you-can restaurant. Through an aggressive grant writing period, over $600,000 was raised, including the $240,000 from USDA, for this project. In February, 2018, HOPE signed a purchase contract on a 3,400 square foot building next door to HOPE's corporate office, on Main Street in downtown Wytheville. We worked with a local contractor, and a kitchen designer, on a design-build, cost-plus contract, to renovate the facility, and by September had finished the renovation. We hired a manager and chef in September--the only two paid positions in the project-and by November 1, 2018, we opened for regular lunches, Monday-Friday, as well as Wednesday evening dinners in conjunction with a weekly school backpack project located in the same facility. Our second goal is to provide education and nutritious meal, using local products. Here too, we are proud of the accomplishments so far. From our monthly dashboard, where we track just about every imaginable metric from our point of sales system, our volunteers, and our purchases, we know that cumulatively, 54% of our purchased food has come from local vendors. This includes our salad greens, and our main proteins. We post this, as we believe low wealth, food insecure households, should the same access to healthy, locally sourced food as everyone else. Further, we have just hired a Nutritionist, through private grant funding, who will be digging into the individual outcomes of our customers in order to be able to report out progress from those who are frequent diners at the Cafe. She began Aug. 19. The third goal of the Open Door Cafe project is to provide revenue opportunity for local producers and processors. By virtue of 54% of our food purchases coming from local vendors--those within less than 75 miles of Wytheville as provided by Virginia Field Goods, LLC, this represents $36,562 of our food inventory purchases going to nearby businesses and producers. Finally, we said we would build a collaborative network for partners within the local food shed, and this is being accomplished on mulitple fronts. First, the daily meals are a collaboration of folks who would not normally sit together, but do so at our Community Table, and get to know each other over a meal. But beyond that, it's a new network of volunteers who have gotten to know each other--whether it's disabled individuals coming from our regional agency on disability, school scholarship students at the local community college, or even individuals fulflling court service hours for some infraction. And as important, we convened the first area working group on food security, which held its initial meeting at the Cafe in July, and will be meeting quarterly to address gaps in services, opportunities for new programs or collaborations, and ways to connect our stakeholders to the new Community Nutrition program.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:In this period, HOPE continued grantwriting for the Open Door Cafe Pay What You Can restaurant. Applications were prepared with a consultant's help (Local Concepts LLC, Liz Spellman and Christy Gabbard) to six regional foundations--United Company, Lowes, Walmart, Oak Hill Fund, CSX Conservation Fund, and the Virginia Tobacco Commission. An award has been received from Oak Hill Fund for $65,000, bringing to over $500,000 in commitments in hand for this project. In late March, HOPE closed on a 3,400 square foot building next door to our corporate office in downtown Wytheville, and have begun the renovation for the kitchen and dining area in May. Anticipated completion and opening of the project is late August, 2018. We posted the job description for the chef/manager at the first of June, with the hope of identifying and hiring an individual by mid-July. Changes/Problems:Navigating our first reporting period in the REEport system has been a steep learning curvet, but once the Guide for Project Directors was found, the reporting was completed. At the same time, the ASAP enrollment was impacted by the HOPE Executive Director being out of the office for two weeks in early January due to a death in the family, during which time the enrollment was deleted and we must be re-initiated. Repeated calls to the Enrollment Initiator have not yet been returned. I look forward to completing this re-enrollment. Sincerely, Andy Kegley What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?
Nothing Reported
How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?By the next reporting period, we hope we are well into each of the four major project goals, as the kitchen/restaurant may be open by October, 2018. Most importantly, by March 15, we will have closed on the purchase of the property and begun renovation for the kitchen/restaurant. We searched and planned for several months for the location, and until early January, were heading towards renovating an office facility HOPE owned and in which we have our main corporate offices along with five other non profit human service partners. However, as the architectural and kitchen design work was being completed on this renovation, the property next door to our office unexpectedly and surprisingly came on the market.This is where we are headed!
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Since this grant award, HOPE has continued its fundraising and grant writing, utilizing a consultant from September through December, 2017 experienced in food shed programs. We applied for at least six major grants, and have received several gifts from area donors thanks to the positive good will generated by word of our progress. The construction of the kitchen and dining area is underway in a building right next door to our HOPE Ministry Center corporate office, on Main Street, in downtown Wytheville. We are participating in the town's Downtown Revitalization program, and will access some facade improvement and signage grants, as well as be eligible for reimbursement of meals tax for up to five years. We anticipate the Open Door Cafe restaurant to open by late October, 2018. HOPE has also begun advertising to hire the chef/manager, with a goal of having the position filled in July, to assist with the final set up and opening. This individual will be responsible for implementing the majority of the project's goals, including the procurement of local food products, education for food insecure customers, employment training and initiaition of the area food shed network. These steps will be a
Publications
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