The global food-relief organization World Central Kitchen is mobilizing on Cape Cod and the Islands in response to the blizzard that has left much of the region without power since Monday.
Working with local chefs and nonprofits, the group will provide meals to people taking refuge in public storm shelters and warming centers.
Initially, food will be prepared at the nonprofit Family Table Collaborative in South Yarmouth.
Then, the group plans to hire local restaurants, probably off-Cape at first, until on-Cape restaurants have the capacity to help, said Samantha Elfmont, response director for World Central Kitchen.
“A lot of folks that we're talking to right now in the restaurants are saying, even if they have the power, they haven't had food delivered over the bridge in a few days,” she said. “Once they're up and running, though, of course we would want to utilize the restaurants on the Cape.”
She said cooking may also take place at Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, which has opened as a regional overnight shelter in Harwich.
After meals are set up on the Cape, the group plans to help Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard where needed, she said.
So far, the Cape and Islands are the only places in New England where World Central Kitchen is operating for this storm, though Elfmont said she is keeping a close eye on Rhode Island to see if communities there need help.
Meals will be available to utility workers and other storm responders.
World Central Kitchen is also working with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which has opened a shelter at its tribal community center.
On Tuesday night, about 70 percent of Cape Cod remained without power. Data from Eversource showed a 100 percent outage in Provincetown, the highest on the Cape.
Then, briefly on Wednesday morning, the Eversource website showed less than 70 percent of customers without power in Provincetown. But the number returned to 100 percent in late morning, and then dropped into the 90s. Outages remain in flux.
World Central Kitchen is coming to the Cape at the request of Jeni Wheeler, co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit Family Table Collaborative in South Yarmouth.
“They'll be boots on the ground … helping us to ensure that Lower, Outer Cape, Upper Cape, the Islands if they need us — now that the Steamship’s back on — that we can get food out to them as well,” she said. “So I'm incredibly grateful to have the cavalry coming to help us.”
Wheeler is a member of World Central Kitchen’s Chef Corps, a group of some 500 chefs around the world who champion the mission of the organization founded by Chef José Andrés in 2010.
Andrés began by cooking in Haiti after the catastrophic earthquake there, and his organization now works all over the world.
Elfmont confirmed that three members of the World Central Kitchen staff plan to arrive on Cape Cod today.
“We provide hot, nourishing meals,” she said. “So, for instance, in the Cape we'll be doing chicken parmesan, and pasta, and soup with a proper panini, and a bottle of water. And, like, local favorites that people and families, children, elderly, can eat.”
Temperatures were in the 20s overnight, and many people have had no heat since Monday.
A continually updated listing of open shelters and warming centers can be found on the Barnstable County website.
