Alternative Volunteering: Don’t Forget the Dessert

We received an email the other day from Craig’s Kitchen, a community action group that supports their local soup kitchen in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn through fundraising and organizing volunteers. As an alternative for busy city dwellers who want to get involved but might not otherwise have the time, the group has devised a way to expand the scale of their small soup kitchen, asking people to contribute desserts made in the comfort of their own homes.

The idea, called Dessert Corps, invites ten bakers each week to sign-up and donate their homemade creations, allowing the soup kitchen to focus its attentions elsewhere. The thoughtful approach is noteworthy for its simplicity. By requiring very minimal effort on the part of its volunteers and keeping their reach small, Craig’s Kitchen is able to help ensure that there will be a continual pool of people looking to participate from week to week – a key to sustaining any long term effort.

And while dessert might not be the cornerstone of a healthy meal per say, the group explains its importance as more of a psychological one:

Although it is the goal at the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen to always provide a home cooked meal, it is not always quite possible; The physical kitchen is too small to provide a hearty meal AND homemade desserts. Since a healthy meal is the main concentration, desserts don’t always get the focus they deserve.  Not surprisingly, dessert is one of the favorite parts of the weekly meal. People accept any sweet–be it a couple of cookies from the dollar store or a homemade treat– with a big smile. Before people head back out into the world, it is nice to put a smile on the face and something decadently sweet in the stomach. There have been valiant attempts by various people in the ‘hood to bake cookies and other desserts at home but trust us when we say that it is damn hard for one person to bake up enough to feed 100 people.

Those interested can learn about the Greenpoint Soup Kitchen through their Facebook page and email craigskitchen@gmail.com for further information about the Dessert Corps program.