Jen Hidinger-Kendrick

00:00Jen Heidinger Kendrick with Giving Kitchen. So happy to have you here today. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here and share the story and the great work of Giving Kitchen, helping food service workers. I love it. So let's talk about real quick. I want to learn about the Giving Kitchen, but I also want to say that Visit Music City is doing a Restaurant Week this week where the Giving Kitchen is the primary benefactor from this, the charity sponsor or charity partner. Is that the right way to put it? Yeah, I would say so. I would say, yeah, charity partner. Charity partner. And I wanted to get the word out as to which restaurants you can go to, how you can help. But first, let's jump in with just a little bit of background. Let's talk about the Giving Kitchen. Let's do it. I would love to share more. So Giving Kitchen is here to help food service workers in crisis. At our core, that is what we do. I'll define food service really quick just to go back and then I can give a little bit of origin. Defining food service for Giving Kitchen and those that we serve.

01:03It is anyone for anybody listening. That's why I want to start here. If you are employed in a full service restaurant, if that is fast casual or fine dining, if you work in a concession stand in a catering company, If you're in a bar or a distillery taproom worker, anybody within food service can come to Giving Kitchen in their time of crisis and we will be there to help. We do that in two very specific ways. One is through our financial assistance program, which means a food service worker throughout the southeast can come to Giving Kitchen and request help. They'll give us a little bit of background information about what happened to them and they'll offer some necessary documentation so we can follow what happened. And we can step in and make sure that their rent, their mortgage is paid, their basic living expenses, really making sure that the water is running, the lights are kept on, essentially there's food in the refrigerator for a food service worker in their time of need. Again, we can step in and make sure that those bills are covered. And then there's another opportunity where Giving Kitchen can step in and help and that's through our Stability Network program.

02:10So a food service worker may be suffering from an extended illness and they go back to work, but you know what, they're really struggling mentally and they're going through a really hard time. They can reach out to Giving Kitchen and we can offer access to resources in their community, locally, regionally and nationally, to things that they may need. So whether that's access to mental health counseling or a doctor or access to other health and social services, family services, things like that, anybody can reach out to Giving Kitchen if they're a food service worker and know that we've got their back. The reason why Giving Kitchen exists is a personal story of mine and so many. I am one of our co-founders. I'm also a full-time staff member. I'm our Senior Director of Community Engagement and I help support our marketing, fundraising and our marketing communications and our fundraising departments. And it's an organization that I hold near and dear to my heart because it is the story of my late husband, who is a chef here in Atlanta, Georgia, who was diagnosed with a late stage terminal cancer diagnosis in late 2012.

03:23And it was ultimately the community's response around him and around he and I and around our family that really led to us having the freedom to lean in, you know, kind of put that pride away, lean into our community, you know, to let them really reach out and help, thus providing what is Giving Kitchen today, which is a nationally recognized nonprofit helping food service workers across the southeast. That's an incredible story. Absolutely. And we've had, you guys are new to town. Originally, did you say Atlanta? Yes. Home base in Atlanta, yep. You said you were serving the southeast. What does that cover? You know what, we are focusing our storytelling. So these opportunities of sharing our mission with, you know, with you in the community and focusing as we are growing within the southeastern region.

04:26So Georgia is our home base. Atlanta, Georgia is our home base. In 2021, we expanded our services and offerings into the state of Tennessee with a focus in Nashville. We actually have hired our first Boots on the Ground individual, an amazing teammate by the name of Kelly. She is our Boots on the Ground there in Nashville, of course, with the help of a PR firm through Roar and Marcia. So covering the Nashville and Tennessee community. And then also, as we continue to grow in 2022 and beyond, we are focusing our efforts in the other southeastern regions. So North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, things like that. We are able to do that. That focus is happening really heavily now in 2022 and over the next few years as we continue to move through our strategic planning efforts. What's been your response in Nashville? I think that initially, when I first heard about it, I was so excited because we're coming, I kind of heard about in the middle of this pandemic, what you guys were able to do to help people from the tornado and just you're just coming into Nashville. That was like almost a year ago. Maybe it was a year ago.

05:37That's exactly right. You're kind of into town. How is everything? What's been your experience with the response from the hospitality community? Overwhelmingly accepting, really, really great. I think that one of the primary reasons why we chose Nashville as kind of a focus market area for Giving Kitchen as this first outside of Georgia expansion opportunity was that the Nashville community felt really in line and very similar to the Atlanta community. There was a lot of synergies there, and that's kind of what we looked at. It was a really great trial opportunity for us to say, you know what, we're going to use these certain tactics. We're going to see how it feels to come into a new market. What does that mean? Do we hire somebody? Do what relationships do we use to open doors and share the story? And I would say it's been overwhelmingly positive. What we saw over the course of twenty twenty one when we entered into the Tennessee market and Nashville specific was, you know, we did it quietly at first. You know, an expansion phase never is just loud right off the bat. And all of a sudden you're everywhere. We've learned that it takes a long time to get your name out there.

06:42And so we did that really methodically last year. And it wasn't until we started to put some marketing dollars after we hired somebody, after we hired a PR agency and again, had those kind of multi opportunities to really share the work before food service workers found out about us. So once we started to put dollars to social media and other opportunities and again have those other boots on the ground, that's really when we saw a significant uptick in food service workers coming to us and asking for help. And that is only because of the amazing partnerships that we've been able to get on our side to help us spread the work of giving kitchen and what we do. The partnership with Visit Music City doing a restaurant week, like that's such a massive opportunity for you guys. It really is. Yeah, especially right in the heart of Nashville. I mean, Music City, Food City, it's fun city, in my opinion.

07:44I mean, it's pretty much just hang out in, you know, if food service workers know that giving kitchen is here to help support them. That's really all that matters to us. I do think, you know, opportunities like a restaurant week is a really great, great way to, you know, strengthen our story, share it over and over and over again. It's great for people in restaurants and food service to know about us, but it's equally, sometimes even more important for people outside of that industry to know about us. It's the moms and the sisters and the brothers of a food service worker who we really want to make sure that that knows about us, because they'll be the ones to remember that if their sibling or their son or daughter and something happens, they're going to be the one who can go and immediately ask for help on their behalf. So that that's really, really important to us. And I think that's why partner fundraisers like a restaurant week, combining our donors and our diners and our food service community all together under one roof really makes the most sense to spread the work. Yeah, moms make the world go round, right? Yeah, they do. Yeah, we'll take care of all of it. Absolutely. So if I'm let's just let's walk through the process a little bit.

08:49Just if I'm a restaurant worker, you have to work in a restaurant or in the service industry, hotel, hospital, facility. If I work in a hospital, but I work in food service in a hospital, like qualify for help, reach out and ask for help. That is what I will say. That's what our case managers and our client service team would tell me to say to anybody who works in food service, reach out to ask for help from giving kitchen. And you can actually do that really simply. We have an app. We also have a website, giving kitchen dot org. It's top top line. It says ask for help. We offer our website actually in multiple languages as well, Spanish and English. So anybody can come to giving kitchen and not be afraid that we won't be able to meet them where they are. So I will I will say that we offer we actually have three case managers on staff right now who are bilingual. Spanish, English and Arabic are the three languages that we don't even need an interpreter for. Otherwise, we do. We have a partnership with an interpretation service. So anybody and any language could foreseeably come to giving kitchen and ask for help and not be turned away under qualifying circumstances.

09:53But yes, I would say, you know, you speak exactly you're speaking exactly to the community that I would love to speak to. You know, oftentimes and I can attest to this being from the very beginning, you know, we were Ryan and I, my late husband, I we were in crisis. We didn't know that we needed help or we didn't see past that that very first step of what what is the one thing that we have to concentrate on immediately. It was everyone around us who said, let me step in and help you so other things can happen. When you're hospital workers, I mean, the hospital, you know, that industry in general, if caseworkers at a hospital knew about giving kitchen, the percentage of restaurant and food service workers who might be in crisis and in the hospital in that moment are probably better equipped to receive help more immediately because someone else is advocating for them. What are some of the actionable ways that you can help that you can help the individuals that need it? We so I'll go through kind of a process of if you were a client asking for help, you would go through our website and either ask for help. So it's a short intake form.

10:59Again, it's a quick what happened to you? Tell us a little bit about the crisis situation. Was it an accident, an injury? Is there a death in your immediate family? Were you sick? Anything like that? We'll ask for some qualifying documentation. You can also do it on your app. So we do have a giving kitchen app. So it's again, a quick intake form within 24 to 48 hours, depending on the day of the week that you come to giving kitchen. A case manager will review that case and put you essentially in a pipeline of either the potential for financial assistance or the potential for stability network community resources. Oftentimes, and one of my favorite stories, actually, that happened last year in Nashville specifically was after we were there in September for our loud marketing launch, like welcome giving kitchen to Nashville. We had a really special day. Actually, it was September 27th. I think it was when giving kitchen was recognized by the mayor and the governor that it was giving kitchen day.

12:00I remember that. And it was, I think, that Sunday before we had the opportunity for a couple of our bilingual case managers to be they were interviewed with one of the Spanish speaking news outlets. On Monday, a client came to giving kitchen from Nashville because they saw that interview on Sunday. And by Wednesday, checks were sent to them in order for them to cover their rent and their living expenses for the month. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. So oftentimes a client can come to us and usually within about 10 to 14 days, that's like a start to finish when a client asks for help by the time that they have resources or financial assistance. And sometimes in cases like an immediate impending eviction, we can we can step in and help within 24 to 48 hours. That's an incredible turnaround. Well, when I spoke with the gentleman last time, I can think of his name right now. I want to say it was Ryan, but I don't I don't know.

13:00I have to look at it. He was on a roundup with us. It was a really fun conversation. It's on our YouTube page. You can go watch it. We talked about I'm a big advocate for sobriety and a big advocate for normalizing the conversation around alcohol and drug abuse. If I'm somebody who knows I got to go to rehab, but I'm afraid to go to rehab because it's too expensive or B, how am I going to pay my bills while I'm gone? I'm I'm lost and I've got to get help. Is that something that somebody could call you for? Absolutely. I love that you mentioned that actually in December of 2020, we included substance abuse recovery as a part of our qualifying illness crises. So meaning anybody who goes through an inpatient treatment facility, Giving Kitchen will step in and make sure that their living expenses are paid for the time that they were gone and away from home or missed work for substance use addiction. That's incredible. That is absolutely incredible that that's such a big fear. It's me. It says, look, I know I need it, but I can't because I can't afford to be off of work because I a month to month on paycheck to I can't do that.

14:07And the ability to say, look, we got you, go get help. Absolutely. And, you know, another one of the things that I'm really proud about, because, again, you know, it takes it takes your friend to be the one who may have needed help. And then that's when you really kind of gain the trust of someone or an organization. Right. I think we do a really great job of those who are willing to share their story to really highlighting that the success of Giving Kitchen is because of these clients, it's because of food service workers having the courage to ask for help and if they feel comfortable sharing their story, because that's really what is going to engage other food service workers to know that it is OK to ask for help, that help exists, that it doesn't have to be scary or hard or even a dramatic amount of time. You know, we really are an empathy driven organization that really wants to see an opportunity for a food service worker to to thrive. And I've seen a lot of stuff on social media because you guys are very present.

15:08I love it. And your PR firm does a great job. Let me ask you, have you guys won a James Beard Award? Oh, well, we have been. That was a great question. We have. We have been honored by the very prestigious James Beard Foundation and we're wearing this. Right. James Beard Award. You guys won one. That would be pretty cool. But you're just wearing it as like a what's up flex. That's exactly right. But it was we were honored with the twenty nineteen humanitarian of the year by James Beard. It was pretty fantastic. It was a it was an incredible year. And another story I love to tell is that Brian Schroeder, he's our executive director. Brian, that was on the show. Right. Yes. I had on the show. He after that honor and after that weekend and everything, we kind of came back to Atlanta from a whirlwind. He looked at every single one of our staff members and board members, you know, in the eye and said, now it's time to earn it. And I think that's exactly what Giving Kitchen has been doing since then.

16:09We we've heard our community. We know that Giving Kitchen is imperative for this industry. And I think we are earning it every step of the way since then, just as we continue to grow. Well, next time you're in Nashville, you or Brian, either way, we would love to have you in studio right here. Let's do a full episode. I know right now we're kind of middle of the day. Just kind of jumping into a quick conversation, but let's talk a little bit more about what restaurants, if you're out there right now and you want to go out to eat and you also want to support the Giving Kitchen, there's a bunch of opportunity right now. So go to visitmusiccity.com. You go to visitmusiccity.com, you'll see these these three different ways to celebrate Music City's food scene. There's chef collaborations and then there's Restaurant Week this week, the 21st to the 27th. And these restaurants, Sixth and Peabody, is offering a retail discount. Acme Feed and Seed is offering a $35 dinner and proceeds of this are going to go to the Giving Kitchen.

17:12You can go to Adele's by Jonathan Waxman right there off of 12th Avenue. They have a $50 dinner. ANSI Blue, if you go eat brunch at ANSI Blue this week, they're going to be donating the cafe at the Bobby Hotel. Central Bar and Kitchen has a $35 dinner. Chilungos, which is in pretty much anybody in the Assembly Food Hall at Fifth and Broadway is supporting this endeavor. So go eat lunch at Chilungos. Church and Union has a $35 dinner. City Winery has a $50 dinner and brunch. These are specials that they're offering for Restaurant Week. Again, and the proceeds are going to go to the Giving Kitchen. Coco's Cafe in the Assembly Food Hall, Coco's Italian Assembly Food Hall, the Commons Club, Cotton and Snow at the Assembly. A lot of restaurants involved here. This is great. Denim, which is upstairs at the Joseph Hotel above Yolan, has a $50 dinner and lunch. That one, I'm going to go do because it is amazing up there.

18:13Have you been to the Joseph Hotel yet, Jen? I have not, personally. Next time you're in town, you got to go check out Denim. It's amazing. I've got a big list. Yeah, I can imagine. DeSanto Pizzeria, Diskin Cider, Donut Distillery, Edessa Kurdish, Turkish Cuisine Restaurant, Ella's on second and the Alastin Place Soda Shop. There's so many restaurants. Fable Lounge, Goo Goo Cluster, Gray's and Dudley, The Hearth. I mean, I think if you just go out to eat this week, you're going to be donating. So all the Hattie B's, Hattie Jane's Creamery, The Henley. Man, I mean, they're just Jane's Hideaway, Jasper's, Jimmy Kelly's, John A's. I'm just on the J's, guys. So go to visit musiccity.com and check out the restaurants. There are special deals happening all over town for you and support The Giving Kitchen. What you guys are doing is amazing, Jen. It's got to feel so good.

19:14You know, it does. I, you know, supporting the community that supported me in my darkest time and in my my my family's darkest time is just the very small way to be able to pay it forward and just really want to see again, a thriving food service industry. That's really all I care about. And that is, you know, kind of at the core of what we do at Giving Kitchen. I will say for anybody who hasn't heard about Giving Kitchen and now you know a little bit more, please visit our website at givingkitchen.org. You can follow us at Giving Kitchen and be a part of the community that has already helped over nine thousand food service workers and their families, their children, anybody connected to a food service worker in that household. And just, yeah, be a part of a community that meets crisis with compassion and care. And I really appreciate it. Janice, yeah, it's been an honor having you here. I was just going to say we're grateful to have you in Nashville and on the show. And I will drive people also to go to our YouTube channel and look up that Brian Schroeder interview because he this is a year ago and he talks about all of the amazing things that Giving Kitchen does.

20:18So if you want to learn more, givingkitchen.org, go to the visit musiccity.com, go support the restaurants that are out there supporting you. And if you want to make individual contributions, I'm sure you can go to givingkitchen.org and do that as well, right? Definitely. OK, right there at the top. All the ways to give. All the ways to give. Jen Heidinger, Kendrick. We got it. Honor having you here. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Appreciate you all so much. Thanks. Bye.