Oprah’s Angel Network

Since winning a Use Your Life Award in 2001 on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”, Robert Egger has continued to bring a critical eye to battling hunger in America and challenging our traditional notions about how to solve the problem.

“Don’t make charity any bigger than it is,” said Robert, who’s never seen bigger buildings, bigger kitchens, or bigger fundraising efforts alleviate hunger in America. “There are just as many hungry kids as there were 40 years ago—we’ve got to have a different approach.”

Photo courtesy of D.C. Central Kitchen

Photo courtesy of D.C. Central Kitchen

Photo courtesy of D.C. Central Kitchen

Photo courtesy of D.C. Central Kitchen

Photo courtesy of D.C. Central Kitchen

A guest chef demonstrates the proper way to chop produce.

Chef Christophe Poteaux explains the finer points of preparing Poulet Basquaise.

Chef Rahman Harper speaks to students at D.C. Central Kitchen

Chef Abdul Hash Housh demonstrates how to prepare Sambousik, or traditional Lebanese meat pies.

Professional football player Antwaan Randle El volunteers his time at the D.C. Central Kitchen.

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Robert has been championing different, innovative approaches for years, starting in 1989 when he founded D.C. Central Kitchen. The kitchen became a national model known for its success in training society’s forgotten people to become food service professionals.

Piggybacking on the success of the kitchen, in 2001 Robert helped start the Campus Kitchens Project, a program created in partnership with Sodexo where universities donate their kitchen space and leftover food. Run by student volunteers and a lead coordinator, Campus Kitchens now operates at 12 campuses and embodies Robert’s vision of using existing infrastructure to make lasting change.

“I only want to use what’s already here,” said Robert, who warns that our nation’s era of excess has wound down with the recent financial crisis. “The kitchen was built on that. We take free kitchen space, food that would’ve been thrown away, and people our society undervalued.”

An Army of Volunteers

At Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., Campus Kitchens coordinator Joanna Racho greets her volunteers by giving them a hair net, latex gloves and an apron—welcome to the kitchen.

“Volunteers are essential to carrying out our mission,” said Joanna, who receives the help of church groups, families, girl scout troops, high school and university students. These volunteers prepare and deliver 750 meals a week.

Student volunteers at Northwestern University have made the Campus Kitchens Project a success.

Photo courtesy Campus Kitchens Project

Most often, the volunteers are Northwestern students, and Joanna feels it’s important that they volunteer because it helps them “…venture out of the college bubble and get to know their local community.”

After rounding up leftover food from the campus dining halls, the volunteers begin scooping out portions of tofu stew, red potatoes, garbanzo beans, dinner rolls, pastries—and whatever else is available to create a healthy meal. Once prepared, the meals are packed for delivery. Before leaving, the volunteers clean and disinfect the kitchen, and another round of volunteers comes by later to drive the meals to people’s homes and shelters.

“The greatest satisfaction I get while working with Campus Kitchens is seeing all the different members of the community getting together to support a cause,” said Joanna.

A History of Innovation

The success of Campus Kitchens and D.C. Central Kitchen can be traced back nearly 30 years. In the early 80s, Robert began feeling frustrated by hunger programs that didn’t attack the root problems. A former nightclub owner, he decided to shake up the nonprofit sector.

Drawing inspiration from a New York-based program called City Harvest—which took leftover food from restaurants and delivered it directly to communities in need—he advanced their novel idea one step further by creating a central kitchen in Washington D.C., where the leftover food would not only be reconstituted into healthier combinations, but the same people who would normally receive the food would be taught the basics of food service at the kitchen as part of a job-training program.

Nearly 20 years since its founding—and with more than 60 non-affiliated programs across the country now replicating its model—the kitchen has graduated over 72 classes of cooking students through its 12-week training course.

Students learn cooking techniques from local chefs, prepare and cook 4,500 meals a day for distribution and help direct the volunteers around the kitchen, which is located under the biggest homeless shelter in the country. Although attrition can be high, the students who graduate are ready to take a big step back into mainstream society.

“It gave me a reason to look forward to staying out of trouble,” said graduate Dawain Arrington, “and now I look forward to helping people.”

D.C. Central Kitchen gives graduates an extra hand by employing them in social enterprise ventures. They’ve created a for-profit catering company called Fresh Start and recently started Capital Carts, a food cart run by graduates. According to Robert, there’s no better publicity for his programs than when somebody realizes that their tasty meal was served to them by a homeless person or a two-time felon. The kitchen starts all its employees at $11.75 an hour with full health care and retirement benefits.

Thinking About Change

These days, Robert still shakes things up. He splits his time between running D.C. Central Kitchen and giving speeches across the country about the untapped political power of nonprofits in America.

“I’m trying to get nonprofits engaged in the election process,” said Robert, who works with the V3 campaign to educate national and local candidates about the impact and potential of the nonprofit sector. “If (politicians) don’t talk about how we’re going to channel the energy of all these people in every single community, I’m sorry you’re not worth electing.”

He also keeps pushing creative ideas to bring about social change, one of which is to expand the nation’s use of public school cafeterias, which he believes are an untapped resource that both children and seniors could exploit to combat hunger and strengthen community ties.

“Now is the perfect time, particularly in this economic climate, for us to really re-think the whole concept of charity,” said Robert. “If we are going to put 3 billion a year into charity, what do we want out of it? Is it just enough to give money or is there something bigger?”

It’s a question Robert hopes all of us begin to ponder.

To learn more about D.C. Central Kitchen, read Robert’s book Begging for Change or check out his YouTube video: