Kitchen Renovation Update: April 3, 2020

Here is Something To Look Forward To

Though the Church has been closed, we have been fortunate that the kitchen renovation was coming to an end anyway. The final painting has been completed, a motion light activated, and a thorough cleaning of all cabinets, fixtures, and appliances was done.  Building, plumbing and electrical inspections have been done, and we passed!  Still to be done are the health and fire inspections, which will be completed once the City of Evanston conducts regular business. The health inspectors need to see how we are planning to use the kitchen, so we will initially need to stock the cabinets with about 50 boxes of old housewares currently being  stored under the stairs and the new housewares we have purchased.

There are MANY new features to look forward to in addition to the clean walls, new sinks, and several other changes:

• Thanks to a generous grant from the UCE Endowment, the Church purchased new silverware, plates, soup bowls, side plates, water pitchers, water servers, serving platters, and bowls. New plastic tumblers are on order, which will allow us to stop using the compostable cups and all the other compostable serving items that were costing the Church $5,000 annually.
• New undercounter dishwashers are now in place and have been tested. The Eco-Lab salesman came about two weeks ago and hooked up the two chemicals that are needed. The new high-temperature dishwashers work very fast and very hot. We ran a couple of loads to make sure everything works.
• The coffee maker is installed and ready to use. The new layout will make coffee service much more convenient, with no need to move hot coffeemakers out onto tables for serving that delicious Sunday morning coffee.
• New coat hooks have been installed in the storage closet, giving our kitchen volunteers a safe and clean area for storing coats.  There is a cupboard to store purses too!

There are a few minor punch list items that will be completed once we are open. We are waiting on a few orders—a stainless shelf to go over the three-sink combo, locks for a couple of cupboards, and a shelf for the east-side closet.

We are so grateful to Karen Courtright who has made over 15 butcher aprons for the kitchen. We will have a ready and clean supply every time we work. We owe Karen a big thank you for her sewing skills.

Some have taken the Illinois Food Handling Certification Course. It costs $10 and can be done online. If you are interested in doing this, please contact Carol Nielsen. We hope to have 10-15 people who have this food handling certificate. It takes about 2 hours and might be a good way to fill your time and to be available when the church is open to help with food service.

It is exciting to look forward to when are back in our building and enjoying coffee hour in our newly renovated kitchen. Thanks to everyone for their generous donation to the Capital Campaign, that offered us the opportunity to make a welcoming and lovely space both for ourselves and for future soup kitchens, and other social justice projects involving food.