    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [December 22, 1999]
    [Pages 2328-2330]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the D.C. Central Kitchen
    December 22, 1999

        Thank you so much. Well, let me begin by thanking Robert
    Egger and all the students, the graduates, the
    staff, the volunteers who have made D.C. Central Kitchen one of the
    greatest sources of community strength in our entire Nation. I want to
    thank Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, your Member of Congress; and Representative Tim
    Roemer from Indiana, for joining us today. I want
    to thank my longtime friend, your DC Council Chair, Charlene Drew
    Jarvis. And I think we have four other
    city council members here; thank you all for coming. And I want to thank
    Harris Wofford, the gentleman who runs our
    national service effort, and the AmeriCorps members who are here today.
    And Harris, thanks for the jacket. We now have over 150,000 young
    Americans who have served in AmeriCorps since we established it in 1994.
    That's a pretty good record, and I'm very proud of them.
        I just wanted to also say, most importantly, thank you to Donna
    Simon. I am very proud of her. And she did a
    good job today, didn't she--and her daughter. Now, last year we made
    lasagna. Today I had to put the filling in the bell peppers. And I did
    it with Steve, Melody, and Michele; they're all
    better than I am. But I love working again this year. I had a good time,
    and I learned about three other people.
        I want to say three things about D.C. Central Kitchen and its
    recipes. First of all, this place offers a recipe for opportunity. It's
    an empowerment classroom. You heard Donna's
    story, and one of the things I learned a long time ago in life is that
    everybody's got a story. Everybody's got a story. And most of them are
    pretty interesting. And they're all still being written. And the nice
    thing about your life story is you get to get up and write a page every
    day, and you have to decide; no matter how bad things are, no matter
    what bad has happened to you, no matter what mistakes you've made, you
    still get to get up and write a new page every day. And this place helps
    people write good pages in that story.
        I want to tell you, last year, in addition to Donna, I met a lot of other interesting people here last year.
    I met a man last year named Francis Hill; stand
    up here. I want to tell you about this guy. He had been living on the
    streets

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    for 10 years before he got into this program. Right after he graduated
    he went to work at the Cafe Atlantico, a pretty high-tone joint not very
    far from here. [Laughter] Within weeks he was promoted. In fact, someone
    on my staff talked to his boss, who said he is by far the best worker he
    has ever had. He has now moved into his own apartment, bought his own
    car, just got engaged to his long-time girlfriend, Wanda. Good for you;
    that was a good thing to do. And he proposed while cooking a meal for
    her at home, a side benefit of being in this program here. [Laughter] So
    this place is a recipe for opportunity. Thank you for being Exhibit A.
        The D.C. Central Kitchen also offers a recipe for service. Every
    year--listen to this--every single year here, 5,000 volunteers roll up
    their sleeves and give something back to their community, people like
    Jose Andres, one of the premier young chefs in
    America. Is he here today? Stand up here, Jose. Now, despite the,
    literally, crazy demands of his job, he comes here every single week to
    share his passion and skills with all the students, and he encourages
    other friends to join him every time he comes.
        Just imagine what we could achieve if everyone in this community and
    in every community where there is a need like this rose to the call of
    citizen service the way you have. Thank you very
    much. We honor you, sir.
        Finally, I'd like to point out D.C. Central Kitchen also does offer
    a recipe for alleviating hunger. And I want everyone in America to pay
    attention to this, too. We're ending this century on a very high note.
    We have the strongest economy in my lifetime. We have the lowest
    unemployment in 30 years, the lowest African-American and Hispanic
    unemployment ever recorded, the lowest poverty rate in 20 years. All
    those statistics are very good, and it's all true, and it's wonderful.
        But when I left church Sunday morning, there were still a lot of
    people in Lafayette Park lined up behind those vans waiting to get fed.
    And I think it is very important that we not forget that with all of the
    increasing number of jobs--and some of you represent that--with a
    decreasing poverty--some of you represent that--the number of people
    that are in really dire straits is still very, very significant, for--a
    lot of them have a lot of medical reasons, mental health reasons, other
    reasons. But they're still out there. They're on the streets. They have
    no food to eat. Requests for emergency food in this community have, in
    fact, been increasing in recent years. So I want to thank you for that.
        This place takes food that would otherwise go to waste and provides
    3,000 meals a day--think of that--just the D.C. Central Kitchen, 3,000
    meals a day. Now, I want to send out another message to America. There
    are people who need food in every community of any size in this country.
    The Department of Agriculture estimates that 96 billion pounds--let me
    say that again, 96 billion--not million, billion--pounds--of food is
    lost every year that could be consumed, from slightly bruised fruit at
    wholesale markets to unsold trays of lasagna at restaurants; not my
    lasagna. [Laughter]
        So you remember what Mr. Egger said at the beginning of this. He
    said, ``You know, last year when I was here there were 21 community
    kitchens like this one around the country. Now there are going to be
    more than twice that many in this year.'' And you should be very proud
    of that. Among all the other messages, I hope this message will get out:
    In every community, civic-minded people ought to take an inventory of
    how much food is being wasted, where it is, how to gather it up, how to
    give it to the churches, the synagogues, the mosques, and whoever else
    has a homeless mission that will take care of that food and get it out.
    When you think about the amount of food that has been wasted and the
    number of people you see lined up at every soup kitchen, at every
    community stop, at every place, not just here but around the country, it
    is appalling.
        And all we need is a system like you have in every community in
    America, and there wouldn't be any hungry people in this country.
    Ninety-six billion pounds of food is more than enough to feed all the
    hungry people in America, and it's just being wasted.
        So I hope that communities--I hope that where this message goes out,
    if this is a problem in other communities, they'll look at the D.C.
    Central Kitchen model, and they'll go to work trying to save the wasted
    food. This is a job that all of us have to do--government but also
    community service organizations. And I think that what we've tried to do
    is to emphasize the role of the community organization and to make sure
    that they knew what we had in terms of resources that could help.
        A few years ago, I signed the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food
    Donation Act, which now

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    makes it a lot easier for private companies to donate food and for
    people like you to prepare and distribute it. Our Agriculture Secretary,
    Dan Glickman, has gotten the whole Government
    working on food rescue programs like this one. And now the Agriculture
    Department is working around the country to form new grassroots
    partnerships to fight hunger, to increase local food production, and to
    help low income families move into independence. But we've got to have
    the support of volunteers, and we have to have the willingness of the
    community.
        We come here at holiday season because everybody's thinking about
    this. But what we should do at holiday season is to make commitments
    that last all year long, not just at the holiday season. The AmeriCorps
    members here--I want to say again how proud I am of you and what a
    testament you have been to the proposition that working with others is
    not a burden, it is a joy; it is not just a duty; it is a privilege. And
    whether you are preparing meals or teaching a child to read or painting
    an old school, you always get more than you give. And most of us get out
    of this life ahead of where we would be if all we got is just what we
    deserve. [Laughter] And I think this is really an important thing to
    remember at this season.
        So again, I want to thank all of you. Thank you, Robert
    Egger; thank you, graduates; thank you
    trainees; thank you, staff and volunteers and supporters of the D.C.
    Central Kitchen. You have captured the spirit of the season, and I hope
    others will catch it from you.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:12 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to
    Harris Wofford, chief executive officer, Corporation for Public Service;
    and Robert Egger, director, Donna Simon, graduate, and Steve Pritchett,
    Melody Swint, and Michele Rhyne, trainees, D.C. Central Kitchen.