Harvard donation

Kitchen Equipment from Harvard Business School
Helps Orphans Across Jamaica

	Commercial-grade kitchen appliances that once filled Kresge Hall at Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Mass., have been donated to Food For The Poor. The items were shipped to Jamaica and are being used to equip 13 Mustard Seed Communities across the island.
Related Item: View Photos of the Donation

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (May 14, 2014) – Thanks to a donation of commercial-grade kitchen appliances from Harvard Business School (HBS), the lives of 400 abandoned or orphaned children living with various disabilities, some with HIV/AIDS, are getting a little easier. Kitchens in 13 Mustard Seed Communities across Jamaica are being equipped with much-needed ovens, stovetops, refrigerators, mixers and more.

“These kitchen items will certainly benefit all our homes as well as boosting the morale of the staff that will be encouraged by their new environment,” said Fr. Garvin M. Augustine, Executive Director of Mustard Seed Communities International. “To the donors at HBS and Food For The Poor, I would like to thank you for your generosity. It will enable our children to benefit from nutritious meals prepared in a healthy environment.”

The kitchen upgrade and renewals for the Mustard Seed Communities resulted from the demolition of Harvard Business School’s Kresge Hall, in Cambridge, Mass. Kresge Hall, built with a generous gift from the Kresge Foundation, opened in 1953. It served as the primary dining and social center for the HBS community until 2001 and as the Executive Education dining facility until 2014. The building was an important fixture on campus for generations of students and HBS wanted to ensure its legacy beyond the life of the physical space. Donating useful materials to worthy organizations like the Mustard Seed Communities is part of that effort.

“As Kresge Hall went offline it was very important to the HBS community that we preserve or donate as many items from the building as possible. This allowed us to pay forward the generosity of the Kresge Foundation.” said Administrative Dean Angela Crispi. “We are very pleased that these items are able to help the people of Jamaica. Food For the Poor offers a wonderful service and we are extremely happy to have contributed in a small way to help them deliver their services.” 

The donations from Kresge Hall were facilitated through Harvard’s Recycling and Waste Services. Three tractor-trailers full of items were donated to local and international non-profits. This included a donation of industrial class kitchen equipment to the Institution Recycling Network, which is located in Concord, N.H. Established in 1999, IRN began its partnership with Food For The Poor more than a decade ago. More than 2,235 container loads of various items have been donated by IRN and distributed to all the countries served by Food For The Poor. 

“I am pleased to have played a role in connecting Harvard Business School’s kitchen inventory into its new reusable role with Mustard Seed Communities,” said Jay Baldwin of the Institution Recycling Network. “HBS in its generous spirit, through IRN and Food For The Poor, will feed thousands of children for years to come. They are the ones who will benefit from this connection, and it’s a great feeling to be a part of this process.”

“Food For The Poor has provided ongoing support to Jamaica’s Mustard Seed Communities for nearly 30 years. The staff and volunteers who dedicate their lives to caring for these abandoned and disabled children are a true blessing from God,” said Angel Aloma, Food For The Poor’s Executive Director. “This organization is thankful for every donation it receives, but a donation to Food For The Poor from Harvard Business School  says a lot about the work that’s being done to help the truly destitute in the world.”

Food For The Poor, named by The Chronicle of Philanthropy as the largest international relief and development organization in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance, with more than 95 percent of all donations going directly to programs that help the poor. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.