The Helping Harvest Community Kitchen, located in downtown Reading, recently surpassed 100,000 meals distributed since its opening in April 2025.
The kitchen provides a variety of meals for Berks and Schuylkill County neighbors experiencing food insecurity, primarily focused on specific populations such as seniors. The types of meals include frozen heat-and-eat ready meals and bulk ingredients repackaged into family-friendly portions, both distributed through Helping Harvest’s network of agency partners and programs such as Mobile Markets, as well as hot congregate meals served by Helping Harvest’s shelter and soup kitchen partners.
“This [Community Kitchen] project has surpassed my wildest dreams,” said Helping Harvest President Jay Worrall. “When we moved in last April, our goal was to produce 2,500 meals per week by the end of our first year of operation. We are now 11 months in, and we’ve had single volunteer shifts of just a couple hours come close to hitting that number. It’s amazing.”
A volunteer shift in February, comprised largely of Penske employees, broke the single shift record for number of meals packaged—2,225 meals in two and a half hours.
“We believe that everyone deserves access to tasty and nutritious food, and that belief is behind every menu planning decision we make in the kitchen,” said Chef Melanie Galarza, Director of Culinary Operations at the Helping Harvest Community Kitchen. “We also have a lot of fun and enjoy what we do, and I think that’s a big part of why volunteers like spending time with us. They feel like they are doing good for their community and having fun at the same time. The result is that we’re able to get a lot accomplished with the help of volunteers.”
The Helping Harvest Community Kitchen will celebrate one year of operation in mid-April.
