Our Projects
Sunday Community Kitchen
Our organization was founded in March 2020 when a group of friends started making meals in our own kitchens in response to the food insecurity we saw on the rise during COVID lockdown. We thought the problem would be better by now, but here we are, five years and 740,000 meals later, still cooking and speaking up for fairness and economic equality.
Every Sunday morning, our team of excellent and good-looking volunteers gathers to prep, cook, and package around 2,300 meals — meals that showcase fresh ingredients and are made from recipes that reflect NYC’s rich ethnic makeup. Our menus always include beef, chicken, and vegan options, as well as allergen-free and halal items.
In the afternoon, distribution partners from around the city begin to arrive and pickup boxes of our food to get out into underserved neighborhoods where the meals are shared with New Yorkers at community fridges, churches, mosques, tables set up in parks and outside shelters. Two thousand meals make their way into the hands of people most in need of some love and good food.
EVLovesNYC stands for food equality, community building, and kindness.
Cafewal
Cafewal, our weekday kitchen and community resource center, opened in October 2024. At Cafewal, a cohort of the newest New Yorkers — recently arrived migrants, most of whom fled violent political upheaval in their home countries in French West Africa — come to learn real-life job skills by working in our kitchen. Our trainees learn professional food service skills and working English as they make daily lunch for the community as well as plan, cook, and fulfill catering orders for like-minded organizations around the city.
After arriving in the U.S. and applying for asylum and work authorization, new neighbors can often experience extreme insecurity and hopelessness while seeking full-time jobs, safe housing, and economic self-reliance. EVLovesNYC’s Cafewal project strives to replace that insecurity with community.
(Cafewal means “cafeteria” in the Fulani language.)
