The St. Alban’s Kitchen: It’s Here! What’s Next?

Thanks to the diligent efforts and generous giving from all of our parishioners, our new kitchen, bathrooms, and other Parish Hall improvements are complete.

If you haven’t already done so, we invite all members of St. Albans to stop by and explore the kitchen when you are at the church.  It was built by you, and built for you! You are the soul and vibrancy that will keep the new kitchen alive and serving our community for many years to come.

It’s time now to move ahead with the reason we took this leap of faith in the first place — to serve our community with expanded outreach ministries, as well as to serve our parish with enhanced social opportunities and financial stability.

Opportunities to Serve

First, we hope that some of you will commit to even more involvement in these outreach efforts. There are two specific areas in which we need volunteers so that we are able to use our new kitchen to make a difference to our neighbors in and beyond the parish:

Certified Food Managers: In order to serve food to the public, a group of our members must take the training to become a Northern Virginia Certified Food Manager. It’s a very simple process! For more info, please contact Fr Jeff at [email protected].

Maintenance Team: To be good stewards of our kitchen, we will also need a team of members willing to make monthly maintenance inspections of the equipment and serve as emergency contacts. If you’re mechanically-minded (you do NOT need to be an expert!), please contact Bill Calvert at [email protected].

Next Steps

When fully operational, we expect the kitchen to streamline parish life preparations and cleanup, enhance our ability to store and prepare food for food outreach ministries, and open the church up to new rental markets for meetings, weddings, celebrations, caterers and food entrepreneurs.

As of July 2021, here are the efforts underway:

• Pursuing documentation and training necessary to pass the county’s inspection and permitting processes that will allow us to serve food to the public either as ministry or part of parish life activities (see the notice above to learn how you can help us become certified);
• Adding signage and developing instructions for operation of the equipment;
• Developing new rental agreements, fees, and requirements;
• Preparing the ongoing maintenance plan (see the notice above to learn how you can help with this important mission).

Over the next several weeks, we will be conducting voluntary orientation sessions to show fellow parishioners how to use the equipment and follow the necessary processes to keep the kitchen ship-shape and certified. The Vestry will also be sponsoring a dedication and celebration of the new kitchen in the fall. Keep your eyes on the SAM, newsletter and website!

Please contact us with any questions. Thanks again for your support, love and prayers for this important project and our parish!

Fr. Jeff Shankles and Bill Calvert