The Kitchen Gallery and MagLiteracy.org, neighbors in downtown Madison, have partnered to turn up the heat in February by collecting culinary magazines from consumers for literacy. The magazines will be donated to chef training programs for unemployed and homeless students, and to children, teens, and families in nutrition education programs run by food banks and food pantries in Madison and nationwide.
The magazine harvest at the Kitchen Gallery is like food gleaning, a practice that is thousands of years old, where crops in the field are gathered by humanitarians to feed hungry people, except this harvest feeds neighbors hungry to read favorite culinary magazines.
Whether on a newsstand, kitchen counter, or coffee table, few things turn your head faster than the delicious cover of a favorite culinary magazine. No two ingredients are more vital for human life and spirit than food and reading.
The Kitchen Gallery is the goto shop for Madisonians and capital visitors looking for just the right kitchen tool or gift. We are so pleased to have this perfect partner for jumpstarting our culinary magazine drive that we plan to replicate coast to coast.
February is the month we celebrate love, and foodies love to cook, and love to read and share magazines, recipes, and food. We are so pleased to share our love of cooking, and the benefits and joys of cooking via favorite cooking magazines.
— Katrin Kelly, Kitchen Gallery Owner
Organizations involved with hunger relief are among the best literacy partners. Supplying magazines to readers via literacy programs has many parallels to supplying food to hungry people. Literacy is basic like food for leading a healthy and productive life with dignity. In fact, the seed for MagazineLiteracy.org was planted 30 years ago at this door of the original Shepherd’s Table Soup Kitchen in Silver Spring, Maryland. When I knocked on the door, I found empty food shelves. So began a lifelong commitment to organizing food drives. I soon realized that the families we were feeding did not have many reading materials or good access to the magazines we all love to read, and set out tap the enormous potential of magazines for literacy.
Those interested in gifting recycled or new culinary magazines for literacy can drop them off at the Kitchen Gallery in downtown Madison during February at 107 King Street.
Join us at our table to change the world – one magazine, one hungry reader at a time.
