Yale Community Kitchen

Every Friday and Saturday during the semester, Yale students provide hot meals for up to 150 New Haven residents as part of the Yale Community Kitchen. For over 20 years, YCK has filled a gap in free meal service as the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen closes on weekends. But now, head coordinators for YCK said that mounting costs and insufficient and inconsistent funding from Yale have put the future of the kitchen at risk. 

All four head coordinators said that their search for additional Yale funds has been unsuccessful. They said that conversations with Dwight Hall administrators and Associate Dean of Student Affairs Hannah Peck have yielded no additional sources of Yale funding, with administrators suggesting the organization begin applying to local grants or fundraising externally. 

The lack of options leaves the head coordinators at a crossroads: compete with New Haven nonprofits for grant money or create “slide decks” to appeal to future donors. For the head coordinators, who managed a tight budget last semester, neither option seems like a viable long-term strategy. 

“Our biggest fear, with all these obstacles and loopholes we’ve had to go through this past year, and the genuine stress of oh my god, are 250 people not going to be able to have dinner because we can’t find money? We don’t want that stress for the future to continue,” Enkhjin Gansukh ’25, one of the head coordinators, said.

Gansukh also said she feared that future head coordinators may “give up” due to the financial stress of the role, jeopardizing the longevity of YCK and the services it provides to the community.

Odessa Goldberg ’25, another head coordinator, said that costs have increased in recent years due to the added expense of take-out boxes and utensils, rising food prices and higher demand for meals. When Goldberg began volunteering at the YCK two winters ago, Yale students served around 50 New Haveners, she said. Now, she said, the number of people in one night has tripled. 

“I greatly admire the work of the students running YCK,” Peck wrote in an email to the News. “With the growth of their services and expenses, they are in a difficult position—to support their core mission, they are needing to develop a new funding model. I and my colleagues are available to help as they take on this new challenge.”

Steve Werlin, executive director of the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen in New Haven, said this speaks to rising food insecurity in the area, which has also resulted in a higher number and frequency of people seeking DESK services. He described YCK’s work as “critical” in the effort to provide free meals to New Haven residents, many of whom are unhoused. 

YCK, which has 27 coordinators running shifts and 963 students receiving volunteer sign-ups, falls under the umbrella organization of Yale Hunger and Homeless Action Project. According to the YCK head coordinators, YHHAP receives between less than $1,000 and $3,500 in funding once or twice a semester from the Yale College Council’s Undergraduate Organizations Funding Committee. As a Dwight Hall Member Group, YHHAP also receives up to $1,500 per semester in funding from the Dwight Hall Campus and Community Fund. 

Gansukh said that while YCK uses the majority of YHHAP’s budget, the umbrella organization also funds 12 other student organizations. 

Goldberg noted that these two sources of funding fall short of YCK’s ideal budget of $5,200 a semester. She also said the funding is inconsistent across semesters, making it difficult to preserve quality offerings to residents. 

“What we’re frustrated by is that [the funding] is inconsistent,” Goldberg said. “We don’t want that inconsistency to be offloaded to our guests and the quality of the food they can receive. So whether it is that the Dwight Hall cap is higher, or there is an exception made for YCK, or it’s through the YCC, or there is a non-variable amount that YCK receives every semester, or it is through the administration, we argue that the YCK provides a real service to the University, not just our guests, in terms of preserving Yale’s relationship with the residents of New Haven and community partners.”

Goldberg additionally noted that YCK reduces Yale’s food waste, citing YCK’s use of leftovers from Yale’s dining halls.   

With $5,200 a semester — or $300 per weekend of operations — YCK would not only be able to continue to provide nutritious meals with fruit and sweet and savory snacks but also other goods that YCK guests have expressed a need for, such as space blankets, Goldberg said. 

Mark Fopeano, director of programming and evaluation at Dwight Hall, wrote to the News that it is unlikely that a single funding source at Yale will be able to fund and guarantee $5,200 a semester on a long-term basis. He also said that it is rare that a student organization or Dwight Hall Member Group would have that amount of expenses unless they have previously secured funding, such as an endowment, or “unique relationships” with several offices or departments. 

However, Fopeano said that Dwight Hall reconsiders their funding policies every year in an attempt to better serve Yale students and New Haven partners. Dwight Hall can also provide advice and strategic support to student organizations thinking about their organizational structure, long-term sustainability and financial model, Fopeano wrote. 

“We support any student organization that is building strong relationships in the community and providing pathways for other Yale students to do so,” Fopeano wrote. “Change usually doesn’t happen overnight, so I hope that YCK continues partnering with our office and others!”

Goldberg questioned the University’s lack of available funds to fund YCK, citing the $40.7 billion endowment, and expressed concerns that applying to grants would take away funds from New Haven nonprofits. Hugo Wang ’25 said he believes there are avenues to increase caps on Dwight Hall and YCC funding and that it is a “question of priority” whether Yale chooses to expand funding options for service organizations. 

Wang said that even if YCK takes administrators’ advice to continue cutting costs, the long-term sustainability of YCK is ultimately still dependent on additional funding. 

“More broadly, there is a question here that we want the administration to think about, and hopefully answer, which is how do they fund organizations that have a big impact on the local community but in order to achieve that would need funding that goes beyond the traditional limits on available funding for student clubs and organizations?” Wang said. 

The head coordinators said that last semester, YCK cut costs by shopping at Costco instead of Stop ’n Shop and started relying on snacks and water from DESK. In the past weeks, they also met with Yale Hospitality to pursue the option of ordering bread and containers through Hospitality.

Although Goldberg described YCK’s budget situation as “urgent” last semester, the group received two grants from local foundations this semester, temporarily easing the coordinators’ financial worries. Fopeano wrote to the News that Dwight Hall assisted YCK in grant applications by serving as a lead applicant. 

However, Goldberg said that grant applications and fundraising efforts are a time-consuming and stressful responsibility for head coordinators on top of the four-person job of coordinating logistics for YCK. 

She said that YCK head coordinators have held off on formally creating a grant and fundraising arm of the YCK in hopes that future head coordinators can rely on some form of steady funding. 

Taking on grants and fundraising would fundamentally change the role of head coordinators, which has historically been to “keep the kitchen running,” according to Goldberg. 

“Because YCK has been around for 20 years, we’re cited as a food resource [by New Haven organizations],” Gansukh said. “When people come to us on Fridays and Saturdays hoping for a full nutritional meal, we have to provide that service … We have a duty to a lot of our guests we’ve established a relationship with and … we hope that relationship won’t be compromised because of this funding issue.”

YCK hands out their meals outside 323 Temple St.