Cathedral Kitchen
Food for the body is not enough.
There must be food for the soul.
Dorothy Day
Our Mission
The Cathedral Kitchen is one of many outreach programs of St. James
Cathedral, Seattle. The Kitchen opens it doors five days a week to
provide a nourishing, hot meal to those in need in our First Hill
and downtown Seattle neighborhood. The Cathedral Kitchen serves
anyone in need, regardless of age, gender, or creed.
A Day in the Life of the Cathedral Kitchen
The day begins at 8:30am each weekday. Two “gleaners” (fifteen
of them during the week) drive round Seattle collecting produce,
deli, meats, and dairy from various grocery stores—PCC, Madison
Market, and QFC—for the four-course meals that are prepared and
served to 150 guests five days a week, all year round, including all
holidays except Christmas Day.
Twelve to sixteen volunteers arrive during the afternoon. Our volunteers include Cathedral parishioners, students from Seattle University as well as Catholic and public high school students, neighbors, and local business professionals.
The long tables are beautifully set each day, and the guests are served with loving care. Each day a different chef prepares a fresh and nutritious menu based on that day’s gleanings. The guests start lining up outside at 3:00pm. All take their places in the Hall at 4:00pm and dinner is served at 4:30pm. For guests who cannot be accommodated at dinner, sack lunches are provided.
During the meals, other services are provided, including ESL tutoring, health and wellness checks, and referrals to local social agencies. More volunteers help with cleanup, and the day ends around 6:30pm.
A brief history of the Kitchen
The Cathedral Kitchen began life as the Family Kitchen on February
24, 1975. Nine people came to Cathedral Hall to taste Catholic
Worker food and warm hospitality that Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin
envisioned when they founded the Catholic Worker movement in 1933.
That crowd of nine on Day One has become an average crowd of 150
more than three decades later. The Family Kitchen has been able to
remain a welcoming, safe, non-judgmental place In May of 2007, the
Catholic Worker group made the decision to step back from operating
the Family Kitchen, and St. James Cathedral took the kitchen on as
one of its own ministries, hiring two full-time staff to operate the
kitchen and coordinate volunteers. Today, the Cathedral Kitchen
serves all in need, regardless of age, gender, or creed.
Partnering with the community
The Cathedral Kitchen depends on many hands and resources—more than
150 volunteers, as well as long-standing partnerships with St.
Mary’s Food Bank, Operation Nightwatch, Union Gospel Mission, and
Northwest Harvest. We also receive regular donations from
individuals—Our Lady of Fatima Parish regularly donates clean
containers for leftovers and new white towels; Our Lady of the Lake
Parish has a team who bake homemade cookies for sack lunches; a
friend from St. Anne’s Parish donates laundry soap as well as chips
and crackers.
Cathedral Kitchen Statistics
Total meals served
Hot meals served daily 150
Sack lunches distributed daily 40
Meals served in a week 950
Meals served in a year 49,400
All this is made possible thanks to the generous support of St.
James Cathedral parishioners as well as spontaneous gifts from
people across our city. While the majority of the food is
donated and prepared by volunteers, the staff and the facilities
require funding. It adds up—
Look at it this way:
Serve one guest for a month $75
Keep the kitchen open one day $665
Keep the kitchen open a week $3,325
What can I do to help?
For more information or to volunteer, contact
Jill McAuliffe at
206-264-2091. Volunteers are especially needed to help with
cleanup. "Gleaners" and good cooks are also needed.
Donations of food are also welcome.