Preparing meals for more than 300 children every school day is no small undertaking!
And when your kitchen is in Haiti, where tropical heat, humidity, and dust are part of everyday life, keeping everything in good working order is an ongoing challenge.
Our school kitchen at Three Angels Christian Academy has been working hard for years. And frankly, it was beginning to show! So while our students were enjoying their summer break, we decided it was time to give this hardworking kitchen some much-needed TLC—but this wasn't simply a matter of sprucing things up.
Because our school kitchen does much more than prepare lunch. It helps make sure that children don't go hungry.
For many of our students, adequate nutrition at home is far from guaranteed. Our school lunch program provides a nutritious meal each school day, helping children stay healthy, grow strong, and have the energy they need to learn. And without a safe, sanitary, fully functioning kitchen, that vital program simply couldn't operate.
A Fresh Start for a Hardworking Kitchen
Thanks to the generosity of the AJA Foundation, our kitchen received a much-needed makeover over the summer! Worn countertops were replaced, complete with sturdy new metal support frames. Old wooden cabinets gave way to metal shelving. The sink was refinished, the cooktop and floors were repaired, and the walls were treated to a fresh coat of paint. We also purchased new cookware, utensils, food-storage containers, and other essential supplies to help our kitchen team do what they do best. And because this is an open-air kitchen in the tropics, keeping things clean requires a little extra ingenuity. Our staff now protects equipment and supplies from the dust that blows through the open windows by keeping them covered when not in use.
The result? A cleaner, better-organized, more functional kitchen—and a much better working environment for the people who prepare hundreds of meals every day. Best of all, everything was finished before our students returned on September 7, and the kitchen was ready for another busy school year!
We're so grateful to the AJA Foundation, whose generosity made this entire renovation possible, along with several other important improvements around our campus. Their partnership helps us care for our students in ways that extend far beyond the classroom.
Because when you get right down to it, this renovation wasn't really about countertops, shelving, or fresh paint: it was about giving a hardworking kitchen a fresh start, so that more than 300 children could continue to count on a healthy meal, day after day.
And that's what makes this so much more than a kitchen.
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Take a tour of our newly renovated school kitchen in this video!