World Central Kitchen May Focus More on Relief Work After Puerto Rico

After preparing 2 million meals for the people of Puerto Rico … José Andrés and his nonprofit organization are now looking to expand their mission and focus their efforts on feeding other victims of natural disasters.

World Central Kitchen and the famous, globe-trotting chef who founded it have attracted a lot of attention for their work in Puerto Rico since they arrived in late September. The group, along with a network of chefs, restaurants, food trucks, schools and volunteers, has developed a whole new model for feeding the hungry following a disaster. They activated any working kitchen they could find, whether a school or a coliseum, and put it to work preparing fresh meals for residents.

Their efforts at preparing and distributing stews, paella and other hot meals have been particularly important in Puerto Rico, where locals have had to survive for weeks without gas, electricity, clean drinking water and money. If not for Andrés and World Central Kitchen, residents would have had to live on the MREs, snacks and junk food typically distributed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and nongovernmental organizations focused on relief. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that WCK has delivered more hot meals on the island than any other relief organization.