By Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#TurksandCaicos, October 6, 2022 – In an amazing act of goodwill at a time when many islanders needed it most, globally acclaimed World Central Kitchen provided thousands of meals to Turks and Caicos islanders in the immediate aftermath of Fiona.

The meals were provided free of cost for almost a week; a blessing to those who were without electricity due to damages from the Category three hurricane.

The international organization is a non-profit, non-governmental organization devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters. It was founded in 2010 by chef José Andrés and most notably prepared food in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and Puerto Rico, following the harrowing hit from Hurricane Maria.

Since then World Food Kitchen has grown in scope and scale.

The WCK moves with incredible speed to mobilize hearty meal preparation and distribution centers with the help of their own organizers and actors on the ground in countries impacted.  It has been documented that their volunteers are some of the first responders providing hot meals to people of all nations after a disaster.

Fresh off of relief work in the Dominican Republic, they followed the track of Hurricane Fiona to the Turks and Caicos Islands where the southeastern islands were worst hit.

World Central Kitchen delivered an incredible service to multiple islands in the TCI, and the group supported local businesses as all food used for the hot meals were bought from local grocers and restaurants.

We learned that the team from WCK arrived the day after Fiona exited the British overseas territory and purchased food from IGA.

First stop for the food caravan was Grand Turk, where several times a day for the first few days hot meals were distributed. Next to receive the meals were Salt Cay and Middle Caicos; both by ferry.

In total WCK served 9,982 meals in the Turks and Caicos Islands; all of which were purchased directly from restaurants such as Bugaloo’s in Provo and MyDees in Middle, or the volunteers purchased ingredients from local supermarkets and assembled them on site.

Many of those thousands of meals were delivered by plane, still hot.

An incredible undertaking.