Toni’s Kitchen Celebrates Volunteer Appreciation Week

We recently celebrated Volunteer Appreciation Week, which took place from April 20-26. During this week, and every week, we at Toni's Kitchen are so grateful for the over 2600 volunteers that quietly and consistently show up each week to serve our community. Our amazing volunteers work in so many different areas to help those in need:

Groceries are available for pickup onsite at Toni's Kitchen at St. Luke's Church on multiple days each week. Choice Pantry guests have access to Toni's Resource Hub which connects our community with meaningful services including government assistance programs, legal assistance, employment coaching and medical services. 

Toni's Kitchen provides a sit-down meal service in our dining room four days a week. Guests are served a nutritious meal by our incredible volunteers in our warm dining room space.

Our volunteers serve our neighbors right in their communities. Toni's Kitchen has neighborhood mobile markets in the three communities we serve: Montclair, Bloomfield and West Orange. These mobile markets provide farmer's market style set-ups for families to choose fresh produce, shelf-stable groceries, and protein.

Our kitchen volunteers are busy every day of the week cooking beautiful home-made meals for our guests. Meals are shared in our dining room and distributed through our food truck, community partners and senior grocery delivery.

Our TK Delivers program provides home delivery of home-made meals to families and seniors whose work schedule, health or childcare needs might keep them from picking up meals at Toni's Kitchen. Our volunteer crews pack each bag with love and care to ensure that every family receives a balanced variety of food each week.

Volunteers are the heart of Toni's Closet, working 7 days a week behind the scenes and in the store. Your gently used clothing is repurposed to provide dignity and accessibility to a wide variety of food insecure populations. For those who are without housing or in unstable housing, Toni’s Kitchen distributes warm sweatshirts, socks, and outerwear regularly after our dining room meal. We also regularly provide families with free clothing distributions during grocery distributions. Other donations are available at very low cost through Toni’s Closet where families and students can choose clothing most appropriate to their needs and preferences.

A dedicated volunteer team cooks and distributes food at our food truck, Toni’s Grill. Toni's Grill provides free, wholesome meals to our Montclair community, serving with dignity and compassion.

All of our volunteers work to support the mission of Toni's Kitchen: to ensure reliable access to healthy food for residents of Montclair, Bloomfield and West Orange and to provide food to our neighbors in need in ways that respect their dignity, improve health and foster independence.

Thank you to each and every one of our volunteers!!!