Three Sisters Kitchen Works Toward a Food-Secure Community

Anzia Bennett, director of Three Sisters Kitchen, will be the featured presenter at the bimonthly meeting of the Interfaith Hunger Coalition on Tuesday, January 23, at 12:00 Noon at First Presbyterian Church (Martin Luther King Blvd. and I-25).

 The mission of Three Sisters Kitchen, which was opened in 2017, is to support the incubation of new ideas and work towards a vision of a food-secure community with a vibrant culture of health and a deep commitment to food and economic justice. 

The non-profit organization provides a local foods and shop cafe (which offers a year-round market for local food makers to sell their products), a test kitchen (a space for food entrepreneurs and young food businesses to experiment, make mistakes, learn, and adjust to create viable products), and a community classroom (offering multi-generational, multi-lingual, community-based culinary, business, nutrition, and health education to build confidence and creativity in the kitchen).
 

Three Sisters Kitchen was created as a result of community conversations hosted by the DowntownABQ MainStreet Initiative, the Downtown Albuquerque Growers’ Market, and their partners, from 2015-2017 with neighborhood residents, community-based organizations, farmers, healthcare and social service providers, and local business owners.

Immaculate Conception Church's Bread and Blessings Ministry 

Bread & Blessings team (2013 photo)

We are beginning a new feature at our bimonthly meetings, which is to highlight the outreach efforts by one of our local congregations to minister to the community at large.  

For our January meeting, we are featuring the Bread and Blessings Ministry at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, which received national recognition from Catholic Relief Services in 2013. Roberta Montoya, coordinator of the ministry at ICC, will offer an overview.  Here is what the church says on its website.

Every Sunday afternoon at 12:45, we are grateful to be able to serve a sit down, hot lunch to our guests-in-need. This ministry is made possible by a faithful group of volunteers who prepare and serve the meal.  Many volunteers are from other Catholic parishes as well as from other churches. On average, each week we are able to serve over 100 persons in the Parish Hall. Since its founding 8 years ago, Bread & Blessings has served around 30,000 meals!