Story by Kurt Rohrbach, Past President and Current TOK Coordinator
Kutztown Kitchen is one of the Kutztown Rotary Club's favorite service events. It is a community meal served on the 4th Sunday of every month from 4:30 to 6:00 PM at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Kutztown. It is open to anybody who wishes to attend. It began as a church outreach program; but, after 10 years was becoming difficult to sustain with the same small group of people bearing the expense and preparation duties every month.
In a 2022 community survey, Kutztown Kitchen was identified as something highly valued by many people in the community. The idea of folks from many walks of life sharing fellowship and a monthly meal appealed to many. Participants find that shared experiences such as this help to bind the community together forming bonds that might otherwise not occur.
The Kutztown Rotary Club stepped in around that time, taking responsibility for the popular meal in the months of January and March. The Rotary Club averages more than one service project per month and there are definitely worse places to be than a nice warm kitchen and dining room in January and March, so Kutztown Kitchen has become one of our favorites. We standardized the menu to a ham dinner in January and Irish Stew in March, selections that we have found tend to draw an above average crowd.
The Rotary Club’s example also established a new model to make Kutztown Kitchen sustainable. We demonstrated the power of having a community organization take responsibility for specific months, year after year. That led to other community groups stepping up to volunteer for a month. No longer does the hard work and expense fall on only a small few.
This January and March we served over 150 new friends. We cheered on an Eagles playoff victory, played a little foosball, and shared a meal. That’s what you call a win-win.
