What do you get when you combine coffee and baked goods with a determination to tackle the social issues in your community? The answer is New Creation NYC.
Twenty five years ago, the generous Mr. Jones founded the Love Kitchen, a soup kitchen in upper Manhattan’s Inwood whose mission was to actively contribute to the communities of Inwood and Washington Heights. The New Creation bakery began as an extension of this mission in the hopes of providing employment and training opportunities to the disadvantaged. For the past year, the New Creation Bakery has operated by catering events for various organizations. Earlier this year, they rented a space on 213th Street and Broadway to open a storefront that would help them “work towards a healthy, just, and thriving community in Washington Heights and Inwood.” New Creation team members Colin and Derek share their inspiring story:
Their plan is to divide the space into three parts: a communal cafe to sell their fair-trade coffee and delicious baked goods as well as feature local artists and musicians, a library to provide a study space and book store for students that attend school next door, and a kitchen that functions as an after-hours classroom to teach Inwood residents about healthy cooking and an “incubator” space to help local entrepreneurs launch their businesses.
New Creation NYC currently has an oven to make their products, but they want to turn their space into a full-fledged community coffee shop and bakery by Spring 2013. In order to make their dream a reality, they launched a Kickstarter project on November 22 in the hopes of raising $50,000 to go towards construction, kitchen equipment, and hiring trainees. Their campaign ends at 11:59 PM TONIGHT, and at the time of this post, they’ve only raised about $13,600. If you have a few dollars to spare and you want to make a real difference for a community in need, we strongly recommend donating to this project. Pledges start at $1–no amount is too small! To learn more or to make a donation, visit New Creation NYC on Kickstarter.
All images via New Creation NYC / Kickstarter
