Kinship Community Food Center will operate the café space inside the ThriveOn King building, the ThriveOn Collaboration announced on Wednesday. Kinship, a nonprofit serving Milwaukee’s Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods, will offer healthy foods and workforce training, as well as share space with the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Teaching Kitchen. Beginning later this fall, the café
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Kinship Community Food Center staff members train in the new cafe space inside of the ThriveOn King building. Photo credit: Jim Moy[/caption]
“We are committed to paving the way for career stability and personal healing, ensuring that everyone, including myself and all members of our workforce team, has the opportunity to grow and thrive together,” said Demonte Dismuke, workforce development manager for Kinship, in the news release.
The ThriveOn Collaboration leads the redevelopment of the former Gimbels-Schuster’s store at 2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, now called ThriveOn King. The ThriveOn Collaboration is a partnership between the MCW, the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and Royal Capital. ThriveOn King, which has been designed to serve as a community hub, currently houses the GMF’s offices, the MCW’s community engagement programs, JobsWork MKE, Versiti on King and Malaika Early Learning Center.
The GMF is contributing $350,000 in grant funding over two years to the ThriveOn King café’s workforce training program. This program “provides paid work experience in culinary arts, urban agriculture and hospitality, while integrating social connection and personal development, to open pathways to steady employment and economic mobility,” according to the news release. The ThriveOn King café will create 10 to 12 jobs.
“Kinship’s inclusion among the mosaic of partners contributing to the activation of ThriveOn King will help us meet two community-identified priorities at the same time,” said Greg Wesley, GMF president and chief executive officer, in the news release. “In our initial visioning process and throughout our ongoing engagement, neighbors have consistently named access to nutritious food and access to jobs among their highest priorities. Thanks to this arrangement, the collaboration can fulfill another promise to Bronzeville area residents.”
The MCW Teaching Kitchen will offer a pediatric obesity educational program and other opportunities. Through a collaboration between the MCW, Kinship, Milwaukee nonprofit FoodRight and Children’s Wisconsin, this program allows MCW medical students to teach Milwaukee students culinary skills and about nutrition, according to the news release.
“Community-engaged culinary medicine programming will provide medical students learning opportunities to understand how to make lifestyle discussions part of their routine visits with patients and to set a positive example by making healthy choices themselves,” Dr. Stuart Wong, MCW professor of medicine and director of the MCW’s Center for Disease Prevention Research, said. Wong leads the MCW Teaching Kitchen.
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The ThriveOn King building, at 2153 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Milwaukee[/caption]