#DoinTheWork Community Conversation: Bryan Schroeder // Giving Kitchen
We sat down (virtually of course) for a community conversation with Bryan Schroeder, the Executive Director of Giving Kitchen. This talk is part of our #DoinTheWork series, where we hope to highlight the incredible civic leaders who are on the ground doing critical work in our communities right now. We hope you enjoy this conversation.
About Giving Kitchen:
Giving Kitchen grew out of a beyond-expectation response to the devastating, stage-four cancer diagnosis of Chef Ryan Hidinger in December 2012. Ryan was well-known in the Atlanta restaurant community for his work at Bacchanalia, Floataway Café and Muss & Turner’s. And he and his wife, Jen, were beloved for their supper club called Prelude to Staplehouse, which they hosted for several years as a precursor to opening their dream restaurant.
The response to Ryan’s diagnosis - initially from friends within the restaurant industry, and then quickly from an ever-expanding community across Atlanta - was truly heroic: an outpouring of love and financial support to help with his expenses not covered by insurance.
Jen said that this outpouring gave Ryan a peace of mind that she believes extended his life by at least six months. The community’s overwhelming response to the Hidingers' crisis set the intent, beliefs and values for Giving Kitchen.
To this day, thanks to the leadership and vision of the Hidinger family and our donors, partners, staff and board, Giving Kitchen has supported over 4,000 food service workers in crisis.
Sagdrina Jalal
It's so good to chat with you and to see you again. I know the last time we saw each other was at CCI's Civic Impact Awards in December.
Bryan Schroeder
Yeah, also known as a decade ago.
Sagdrina Jalal
Also known as a decade ago, yes, absolutely. I feel like last week was last year. But that was actually just a few months ago and it was really great to become familiar with your work. I'm very grateful that you were able to take the time, I know it's busy. We try to start these conversations by giving folks a little bit of an understanding of what the organizations do—CCI as well as the Giving Kitchen. So I'll start off and then you can talk a little bit about the Giving Kitchen and what you guys are currently up to, but more importantly, just a general overview of the organization. The Center for Civic Innovation is made up of hundreds of leaders from organizations that are focused on addressing inequality in Atlanta. We are very unapologetic about our love and commitment to our city, and therefore we ask ourselves and others really tough questions. We want the city to be all that we know that it can be, and we are very aware that the current public health crisis makes conversations like these really, really important. With that, I'll turn this over to you.
Bryan Schroeder
Yeah, thank you very much. Really honored and appreciate what CCI does. It's an honor for us to be recognized. And it's our home. We're a statewide agency now, we plan on being a regional agency and a national agency one day, but Atlanta will always be our home and we'll always be grateful for your work. Giving Kitchen is a nonprofit organization that provides emergency assistance to food service workers. And we do that in two key ways: connection to a community resource, or access to financial assistance if you have been injured, if you're sick, if you have a housing crisis like a fire or flood, or had a death of a family member. We're about six years old. We started, really, in response to one person's life. There was a young chef named Ryan Hidinger. He worked at Muss & Turner's up in Smyrna. Ryan developed stage IV gallbladder cancer and his friends and family in the food service industry rallied around him. His last name was Hidinger, his nickname was "Hidi." They hosted an event eight years ago called Team Hidi, and their goal was to raise around $25,000. They ended up raising $225,000. And out of the generosity and the support of the men and women from across food service who came together, the idea that, "Man, if we can do this for one person, why can't we do this for thousands of people?" And so, really and truly, Giving Kitchen is the story of the fight for one person's life. Life has become the fight for thousands of people's lives. We're really fortunate. I don't think Giving Kitchen could've come out of any other city. As we emerged, we were taken to civic and business leaders across Atlanta. Home Depot brought us in and taught us about their Homer Fund, which is an employee assistance program they have. What are the questions they ask? What are the documentations they request? How can we prove and understand what someone's crisis is? What are the tools that we need to understand, what does someone need and how long do they need support until they are able to get back on their feet? What types of crises should we consider? So we're really fortunate; a lot of other people had done the dirty work for Giving Kitchen. We went from a scrappy, paper-only tiny office—not really an office—to now, we have a team of 15 people; everything's online; we have bilingual teammates; information on our website; our applications are in English and Spanish; we have a team of translators that are available off-site. We've gone from serving hundreds of people annually to, this year, we plan on serving thousands of people. And we came into 2020 having provided $3 million of financial assistance over the last five years. Looking ahead to December, my estimate is that we're gonna provide $1.5 million in financial assistance. So, going from 3 million over six years to 1.5 over the next 12 months, we're an organization that's growing. But it also means that we're an organization that's stretching and changing, and we're looking at what we do and how we serve our community, and look forward to kind of digging in to those questions, and really some tough questions, about what the food service community faces and the role Giving Kitchen can play as a frontline service provider in a world [where] there are some tough questions that we need to ask about—from immigration to fair wage.
Sagdrina Jalal
We're gonna definitely try to dig into a lot of that. I became familiar with this need to support service industry professionals at the Southern Foodways Alliance. They had a symposium last winter, and that was the topic of the conversation, in terms of the challenges that are somewhat unique to the industry. And then, as you said, when a crisis takes place, who is there to respond and what does that response look like? And then, just a couple of months later, I had a personal interaction with the Giving Kitchen. Brian Berman is a personal friend of mine, and his restaurant burned down. I know that he turned to the Giving Kitchen, and you guys responded and provided a great deal of support with the employees. He's back and running now, and so it's just really interesting to see how there's just so many groups that are doing impactful work that no one really knows. Because I certainly didn't know, and I've been working in the local food space in Atlanta for some time. And so now, here we are in this COVID-19 situation, and we're becoming more and more aware of work that's happening that we didn't know was happening. And so Giving Kitchen is now a little bit more known and the work is being elevated and focused on. What does that look like? What are you guys doing now that we have not just a crisis for one restaurant or one business, but... what does it look like to address an entire pandemic?
Bryan Schroeder
That's a good question. Part of it is really understanding who we are and what we do. And my commitment to the teammates—I wanna plug the people who work at Giving Kitchen. It's one of the most incredible and impressive groups of people I've ever been around. My commitment to them and our commitment to each other was that we're gonna work with clarity and purpose. The first few days of this crisis, there was this wall of pain and confusion and frustration, and we all felt it. Two-thirds of the staff at Giving Kitchen have a household that's lost income because of food service. My family has a restaurant in Rome, Georgia that they've had to close during this crisis. So in the early days, there [were] a lot of people who were confused about what Giving Kitchen does. And every one of us, in our hearts, saw so many people who were unemployed and said, "Okay, what can we do? Certainly we can do something about this." And with so many people outside the agency like, "Oh, this is what Giving Kitchen is for, they're gonna be able to help replace income," very early on, in really clear ways, we staked out what Giving Kitchen does and why. For people who are unemployed, we were gonna be the best resource of information for how to protect yourself, where to get food, where to get shelter, where to get financial aid, and what resources are in your community. We thought, if we could do that for people who are unemployed, then that's a huge service. And then for financial assistance, we really had to stake out our territory that we're gonna continue to do what we've done. That if you're sick, if you're injured, if you've had a death in the family, or if you've had a housing crisis like a fire or flood, we'll be there to offer financial assistance. And then the chaos of those few early days, what emerged—and we couldn't say this in the beginning, it really took a few weeks for this—was that everyone in food service is in trouble. We're helping some of the people who are in the most trouble. So over the last four weeks, we've provided about $150,000 in rent assistance, utility assistance, and funeral expenses to food service workers who are unemployed, and... they've had a hysterectomy; they've had a miscarriage; they've had broken bones; they've had cancer diagnoses. It's over 100 people. Now, I guarantee that no one would want to trade places with the people who are on the list that we're helping. And what's emerging is, we're averaging about between 35 and 50 thousand dollars weekly, going out the door to food service workers who are experiencing an economic impact because of COVID-19, but also have had a terrible illness, a terrible injury, loss of a loved one, or a house fire or flood.
Sagdrina Jalal
Wow. I think the thing that we're all becoming more familiar with is the terminology around this crisis. The distinction we're making as it relates to essential workers has become very prevalent, household terminology. Certainly, the folks that you're supporting are considered essential workers in many cases and are on the frontlines; therefore, exposure and engagement and that sort of thing, especially restaurants that are still open and offering takeout, and even folks that are—do you guys consider the food service delivery folks, are those kind of in your network as well?
Bryan Schroeder
People who do delivery in a contract directly with a restaurant.
Sagdrina Jalal
Gotcha. So there are folks that, in addition to being displaced because of the crisis, are still working and having some challenges as a result of the crisis as well. It sounds like there have been quite a few layers of support that you guys are considering during this period of time that maybe you didn't have to consider in the same way prior to COVID-19. We can definitely talk about a lot right now, but my question really is around systemic challenges that you're seeing now that Giving Kitchen is not only doing the mission-driven work that you were already focused on, but—what are you seeing as big-picture outcomes of this experience for your work and for your industry?
Bryan Schroeder
That's a great question. This has been an evolving process for Giving Kitchen since the very beginning. There's a lot of assumption that went into what it means to serve food service workers in the very beginning of Giving Kitchen. When you think about who that one person was, who Giving Kitchen was built around, he worked outside the perimeter. He worked in a restaurant that really took care of him, they paid for his insurance. And there's a lot of assumptions that were built into Giving Kitchen when we founded it about the way that we can help food service workers. One of the things that I think is incredible about food service is the spectrum of people who are involved in making a meal, or the spectrum of people who are involved when you say "food service workers," and all the issues we're facing in our society, from the chef who graduated with student loans he can't afford to the immigrant labor that's working in the back of almost every single restaurant in our city... So we have worked hard to evolve, to understand that serving a food service worker with rent utilities is—that we need to continue to look into the situation and ask, "What kind of documentation do we need? What kind of living situations are we helping to cover?" Realizing that many people don't have what would be considered a traditional living situation; they may share an apartment with four or five other people. Their names may not be on the list. So, as we really hone in and continuously evaluate the important work that we do serving the most service folks as possible, that we're continuing to evolve. One of the things, systematically, that we're seeing is, especially in the first few weeks when no one could get to a doctor, no one could get proof that they were sick or hurt or injured, that we've worked on... so, documentation of a crisis is really important to Giving Kitchen, and it's really important for your application to be processed. It is hard work. There's work that we ask people to do to get support. But we've worked to clear some of those barriers by offering a lower threshold of documentation for sickness or an illness. So we're accepting tele-diagnosis, tele-assessment. We've been able to find teledoc companies, either locally or nationally, that, for a very low price, can validate or do an assessment that we would accept as part of the application to get support. So that's been one of the big lessons learned for us. People said—we had friends, they just said—"Well, you're asking people for proof that they are sick, that they can't work, that they have COVID, but how are they gonna see a doctor?" So we've been able to jump through that hoop and really look at ways that we can use technology so that people can get the kind of documentation they need to get support from Giving Kitchen.
Sagdrina Jalal
I think that's really important because as we have longevity in this experience, we're realizing that not everyone has equal access to healthcare, and that those barriers can be significant and can prevent people from accessing resources like the ones that you offer. So I think it's great that you guys are paying attention and making adjustments in real time, but also thinking about how this affects things in the big picture.
Bryan Schroeder
Yeah, and we're also proud that... there is a digital divide, but that you don't need to come to our office to get help. We may not see 99 percent of the people who Giving Kitchen helps. And it's actually really beneficial for people who... their only source of technology may be their smartphone. So you don't need a computer; all you need is access to the Internet through your smartphone. You can take pictures of your doctor's note, you can take pictures of your lease, and you're able to complete an application without having to travel into Atlanta, travel to Edgewood, which is where we're located, travel to get support. For people who are transportation-limited and technology-limited, to get assistance from Giving Kitchen, often all you need is a smartphone, or, if you're patient, we can also do it all through the mail. We'll mail you an application, we'll accept everything through the US Postal Service.
Sagdrina Jalal
And I noticed you said earlier that you have staff members that are bilingual—Spanish-speaking, specifically, is what you mentioned. I'm also assuming that you all offer some technical support as well. If they have a need filling out the documentation, if they need support with that, are you guys available for that?
Bryan Schroeder
Absolutely. And there's no such thing as an average client at Giving Kitchen, but I would say that people who are technology-able can get through the application process within a few days of work on their end. There's a couple steps on our end that may take some time. And to get help, it may take a few weeks before you start the application to when you get support. But the application process can be open for six months. So we've actually had people who are in the middle of a crisis, they may start an application, and they may not come back to it for a few months, either because the grief was too much... the crisis brain is real, so we really try to give people as much time as it takes. That also helps people who may have a language issue, that we can either provide support or they can get help to fill out the documentation and get the documents that we need to be able to provide assistance.
Sagdrina Jalal
That's really intentional. And also, just kind of considering the emotional toll, and even just the exhaustion that comes with an experience like this, and allowing time for that is really significant.
Bryan Schroeder
Food service workers—and I say this because I am one, Mom and Dad opened a restaurant when I was three days old, I grew up in and around food service—we're hardheaded. The nice thing to say is we're really prideful. For a lot of us, we want to make it on our own. We don't want help. I think for a lot of people it's when rent's due, or rent's been due for a few months, and they realize, "I really do need Giving Kitchen's help." That's something that I think this crisis is gonna exasperate. Restaurants are coming back. I've seen a lot of gloom and doom about the end of food service, or the end of the mom-and-pops—that's not true. The people who love food service aren't just gonna quit, and they're not gonna relinquish food service to big chains. It may be what it looked like before, but food service isn't going anywhere and restaurants aren't going anywhere. But what's gonna happen is that people who would've never used Giving Kitchen in the past because they had their own savings or their own restaurant was able to help them are gonna be dependent on Giving Kitchen now more than ever. So that's one of the things that's really scary for us, is we lost almost a year's worth of funding in one week. And we looked out over what the rest of 2020 looks like, and who knows when food service... because we're an organization that, the majority of our support came from restaurants, or restaurants supported events, or Cisco or US Foods and some of the distributors. And so one of the things that we are concerned about over the next 12 months is there's gonna be this exaggerate need for our services at a time when the income from restaurants is really slowed down. But at the same time, we're also really fortunate because we've been the recipients of very generous supporters, and actually thousands of people who've made their first gift to Giving Kitchen at the $50 level or the $25 level, which is really fantastic.
Sagdrina Jalal
It's definitely a sign that people are paying attention and responding. Last week, we had a conversation with Jasmine Crowe of Goodr.
Bryan Schroeder
I saw that, that was a wonderful conversation.
Sagdrina Jalal
Oh good, I'm glad that you enjoyed that! It was fun, and she was amazing. One of the things that came up was, around the conversation about essential workers that she hires and is working with delivering their food, is this idea of readdressing the federal minimum wage. I'm just curious what your thoughts are and if Giving Kitchen weighs in on that at all, and if you think that this is gonna help our community for us to address that.
Bryan Schroeder
This is a great topic to talk about, and it's something that we discuss as a staff often. One of the things that we have to really be thoughtful about is, where can we move the needle? For Giving Kitchen, we're on the frontlines of financial assistance for people who are in crisis. There are some really important conversations that we need to have in our community about everything from minimum wage to living wage to health insurance, and much like the COVID-19 crisis, there are people who are pulling Giving Kitchen into those conversations. I think that, as an individual, I have my opinions, but Giving Kitchen isn't my business. I run Giving Kitchen on behalf our board, on behalf our community, on behalf our staff, so we really have to be careful understanding where we can have the most value and where we can have the most benefit and impact to our community. Something that I think is going to evolve, and what we're committing to, is that Giving Kitchen is going to have the best data set about the lives of restaurant workers. Because we're asking from thousands of people who are asking for support from Giving Kitchen. We know how much they make, we know how much they pay in rent, we know how much pay in savings, and so I see our part of the conversation about equity, about living wage, about health insurance, is we're gonna begin publishing some of that information so that, as we have an open, public debate, that that information can be used by anyone who wants to really have a discussion about the best way to support the lives of people who work in food service.
Sagdrina Jalal
That's super important, and that's something that CCI's really focused on as well, is just making sure that we are gathering the most information that we can so that we can provide that back and that people feel like they have a good, solid basis for how to move forward and—.
Bryan Schroeder
So you can have a factored-in in public policy discussion.
Sagdrina Jalal
Exactly, absolutely. So I think that's an appropriate role. Tell me about the partners and collaborations that Giving Kitchen works with, maybe have there been some folks that have been merged as a result of the crisis? What are some really neat things that have come out of the work that you do as it relates to multiplying impact by collaborating with others?
Bryan Schroeder
One of my favorite stories in the past few weeks... one, there's so many incredible stories that are gonna be captured and told over the next six months, year, about restaurants who pivoted away from serving food to customers who became, really, charities in their own right. And their customers became the people in their community, and they no longer had people who were buying food from them, they had donors who were helping them provide food to restaurant workers or provide food to hospital workers. My favorite so far is Linton Hopkins and his team, with Restaurant Eugene and H&F Burger and the Eugene Commissary Kitchen, have started with a couple of different initiatives, feeding hundreds and thousands of people at a time. I'm also really fortunate to be on the board of We Love Buford Highway. I think Buford Highway is one of the most important cultural centers, not just food but culture in general, in all of Atlanta, in all of Georgia. I was able to play a connecting role between Linton and Lily, who's the Executive Director of We Love Buford Highway, and that connection has already resulted in thousands of people who had gotten kind of left out of the mix getting meals and getting fed on the Buford Highway corridor. So there's a lot of that going on. We have a resource page, givingkitchen.org/covid19, and that resource page has had about 53,000 page views since we started it four weeks ago. So we hope that people are going to it because people are sharing it with them, and that was our goal from the beginning, that we wanted to create the best resource for restaurant workers where the best information could be found.
Sagdrina Jalal
Wow, that's incredible. And tell me, what lifts are you seeing that certain institutions are carrying now that they weren't carrying before?
Bryan Schroeder
There's healthcare, right? And the lift of so many people who are sick. It's interesting what's happened in food service. You still have people who are doing carryout and takeout, but we've seen food service pivot to be, "Hey, we're gonna feed children, we're gonna feed the needy, we're gonna feed the unemployed, and we're gonna feed hospital workers." One of the most important things about keeping restaurants open and pushing food through is it means you're buying from distributors and you're buying from farmers and you're able to make sure that the food system stays alive, even if it's not as healthy as it once was.
Sagdrina Jalal
I know that you talked about the personal medical crisis that Giving Kitchen was founded as a result of, and I also know that the food service industry is most threatened in certain areas in terms of COVID-19. Can you speak to the risk involved, economically, for those individuals in the service industry that are already working at minimum wage jobs?
Bryan Schroeder
This is a crisis-filled time, and it is an incredible amount of uncertainty, it is an incredible amount of pain. We are watching and hoping that some of the big systems that we have in place in our communities from the state to the federal government in terms of unemployment, we're also hoping that the stimulus package and the limited funds from the PPP work program have been able to start stabilizing some of the food service workers in crisis. But the reality is that's not the case for everyone. A lot of people have asked, "Brian, if I want to take care of a food service worker in crisis, or if I'm really worried about my friends who work in food service, what should I do?" The first thing is, a fully-functioning restaurant is the best way to help a food service worker in crisis. So staying home, practicing social distancing, being solutions-oriented towards this crisis is one of the most important things that we can do. Second, if you feel safe continuing to go out to eat, when you go out to eat, tip big. The other part is, there's a lot of great GoFundMes out there. Support a GoFundMe in your neighborhood. Support a GoFundMe from a minority-owned business or an immigrant-run business. Read the fine print, make sure they're really clear about how funds will be distributed. But I think if you're gonna support a food service worker in crisis, if you had a hundred bucks, spend 25, tip 25, donate 25, and if there's still anything left over, a donation to Giving Kitchen's always appreciated because we really do feel like we're doing good work helping to make sure food service workers are aware of what resources there are in their community, how to get fed, how to get assistance, what's the best information to be aware of around COVID, but then also for people who are sick—and that's one of the things that we've seen, is that many of the clients that we're serving right now broke their leg, broke their wrist, broke their ankle about two or three weeks ago or two or three months ago, and they're just about to return to the workforce. So they have been unemployed for weeks or months, and now because of COVID, that's gonna continue. And that's gonna disrupt their ability to pull unemployment, it's gonna disrupt their ability to be on benefit from the PPP, the Payroll Protection Plan, loans that have gone out to small communities or to small businesses... so that's not something that we had planned on when we started this, and we really are helping to bridge these people from a crisis to then the COVID crisis and then into this uncertain future.
Sagdrina Jalal
I wanna just wrap up with a more general question about Giving Kitchen and then talk to you just a little bit about your experience through all of this. Tell me, where do you see Giving Kitchen in five years and then again in ten?
Bryan Schroeder
In five years, Giving Kitchen's gonna be a regionally-influential organization. My guess is that we will be in every state that touches Georgia; we will have a hub in Georgia and we're gonna remain an Atlanta-based organization. We're gonna start having small offices and small teams of staff that work in some of the bigger cities in our region—Nashville is a great example—some of the larger cities in North Carolina. And then ten years, I think Giving Kitchen's gonna be looking at, where's our next regional hub? Serving the Mountain Time or Pacific Time? This sounds cheesy, but I, in my heart of hearts, believe Giving Kitchen is one of Atlanta's next best ideas—with Coca-Cola, with Home Depot, Mailchimp, with so many other organizations that you guys are a part of—that Giving Kitchen is an idea whose time has come. And that there's a lot of communities across the United States whose restaurant communities at this time wish that they had an organization like us. And we're so fortunate to have had the support of Atlanta to get started, and this just feels like this is our time to pay back. In just a very straightforward way to say it, this is our moment.
Sagdrina Jalal
That's fantastic. So, what's inspiring you and what spaces are you finding that inspiration and how are you taking care of yourself?
Bryan Schroeder
I was really fortunate for ten years, and maybe even before that, to have spent a lot of time outdoors. I used to work at an organization called Georgia Conservancy, and it does statewide conservation work, and with some really incredible people, helped to organize trips and outing programs all over Georgia. We actually worked a lot with students at Morehouse and Spelman, getting students from the AU engaged in camping activities, and there's so much cool stuff happening on campus around the environment. We were getting thousands of people annually camping, backpacking, paddling, seeing the whole state of Georgia. I found myself having these selfish moments during this crisis where I just wished I could run away. I wished I could throw the canoe on top my car and disappear, and [I] kind of had to have this tough talk with myself that, "You are in the middle of the most important fight of your life." And that all the sunrises, all those sunsets, all those times on the river, all those incredible people... that those moments can power me now. Often, instead of wishing that I was somewhere else, I'll spend ten minutes and just spend time in my memories or spend time in what we used to do and how we used to do it. So for me, that's been probably where I draw most inspiration, is the peaceful moments of the last ten years of enjoying the outdoors. I also have an incredible family, an incredible wife, an incredible daughter, and spending time with them is also great recharge.
Sagdrina Jalal
That's awesome. That's such a great way to look at it. I think so many folks are starting to really feel the pressure of being home, and to hear that... not only are you able to tap into those memories but to look forward and maybe even have a greater appreciation when we do return to a new normal, maybe. Thank you so much, Brian, for taking time to talk with us. This was great, very informative. It's great to hear the work that Giving Kitchen is doing and also to learn how we can be a part of that. I know that CCI will continue to work with Giving Kitchen and we will share your information, post this interview and this conversation, just ongoing. So please let us know how we can continue to support.
Bryan Schroeder
Absolutely. Thank you for this opportunity to tell our story.