Philabundance unveils $12M new facility in North Philadelphia neighborhood

Samir Hernandez says his life has come full circle.

After getting laid off from his retail management job years ago, Hernandez was searching for something new and took a shot with Philabundance's Community Kitchen (PCK), a months-long program that prepares adult students for a career in the food service industry.

The program ignited his interest in the culinary arts. He graduated from the program in 2018 and began working in restaurants throughout the city.

“I’m very very passionate about it,” Hernandez said about cooking. “I didn’t know until I got here.”

Now Hernandez, 30, has made his way back to PCK. Today he works as an assistant chef instructor at the nonprofit’s new state-of-the-art facility PCK facility that recently opened on the 2200 block of 10th Street in North Philadelphia. Hernandez teaches new students going through the program and helps prepare meals for the needy.

“Absolutely full circle,” Hernandez said as he stood inside the new facility.

Hernandez was among those working inside the $12 million, 20,000-square-foot building on Tuesday for its grand opening. The ribbon cutting drew out Gov. Tom Wolf, First Lady Frances Wolf, Council President Darrell Clarke, and other state and local officials.

Launched in 2000, PCK provides culinary arts training and life skills for low-income adults, as well as formerly incarcerated individuals.

The new facility, which broke ground in May 2019, is embedded in the neighborhood among row houses and near Ebenezer Baptist Church. The development was a public-private, which was awarded the land and $4 million from the city, along with state aid.

The building will create a permanent home for the PCK program, which was operating out of a city women’s shelter in North Philadelphia the past 15 years. A new PCK class of more than 20 students began at the end of August.

The larger building has allowed Philabundance to increase both the length of the training program, number of classes, and class size. In addition, the building will boost the number of free meals Philabundance offers from its previous max of about 300,000 a year to 2 million. 

Philabundance Chief Executive Officer Loree Jones said the nonprofit, one of the region's largest anti-hunger organizations, worked with the community to design the project. The facility also will offer community space for residents in the neighborhood.

“We wanted to partner with the community to help transform the community in the same way we transform lives,” Jones said. 

African Americans make up 81% of the population of the Census Tract where the PCK facility is located, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau estimates from 2018. The average inflation-adjusted median household income for the tract was $12,839 in 2018, far below federal poverty levels.

The Rev. John Payne, senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church for 15 years, said the church worked with Philabundance to bring the facility to fruition to a neighborhood that suffers from gun violence, poverty, food insecurity and gentrification.

Payne applauded Philabundance’s commitment to listening to members of the community on the development of the project. To win local support, Payne said the neighborhood has to extend an invitation — not the other way around. He said the new facility was a major investment that will help keep residents in the community. 

“People have lived here for generations so they’ve seen the rise, the decline, now they’re seeing the rise again,” Payne said.

Tom Wolf said the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic has disrupted lives and increased food insecurity, creating even more of a need for the new facility.

“The culinary training and life-skills program at PCK for low- and no-income adults allows members of the community with very few resources to get the fresh start we need them to get,” the governor said.

Clarke, who represents District 5 where the new facility is located, said Philabundance’s facility was part of rebuilding that community.

“We’re rebuilding lives," he said, "we’re rebuilding families, we’re rebuilding neighborhoods."