    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 51 (Monday, December 27, 1999)]
    [Pages 2653-2655]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    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
    D.C. 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

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    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 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

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    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 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.