Chefs for Humanity
Blog
http://www.chefsforhumanity.org/
October,
2007
On October 1, our president and founder Cat Cora spoke at length about Chefs for Humanity. In an hourlong conversation with Acting Director Diane Burstein, the celebrity chef, well-known for her noble and philanthropic work, outlined her vision and action plans for the organization.
“We consider Chefs for Humanity the Doctors Without Borders for culinary people,” Cat Cora spoke with great respect for the reputed organization of medical practitioners. “What they’ve done with their team of doctors, we plan to do similar things with our team of chefs.”
Cat is highly confident the mission can be accomplished. She mentioned about the massive work CFH has done in emergency relief areas. “We’ve learned a lot of lessons during our work after Katrina.” She was happy about the success, fame and press coverage CFH chefs and workers received, and yes, did they deserve it! With that success in mind, however, she talked about future plans.
“No major organization in the culinary world is so active in emergency relief,” Cat said. “We’re the only people doing it. We’ve formed a group of committed people, dedicated people, and we’re constantly learning. Chefs for Humanity leaders are learning from the work in New Orleans. We’re learning from the work other humanitarian groups have done in Tsunami areas.”
“We’re expanding our core team,” Cat was delighted to mention that celebrity chef Dean Fearing has now joined the Chefs’ Council at CFH. “Dean is a great friend, a great chef, he’s serious about giving back, and he can take an important part in our charities and fundraising missions.”
[So…look out for our next blog on Dean – coming up soon.]
“It’s just great including Dean in our team,” Cat was proud and happy about the celebrity chef’s new landmark achievement. “Dean just had a big opening of his Ritz Carlton restaurant in Dallas. He’ll be a great asset for us.”
Cat spoke about the importance of bridge-building across the emergency relief areas. “Not just culinary people, we want to bring in agriculture experts, irrigation experts, experts who can deal with water shortage problems...people who can go into disaster areas to help the work on emergency relief.”
Natural disasters have never been, and never will be, just a U.S. phenomenon; it’s international, and unfortunately, it’s increasing globally. With tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes and other forces of nature striking frequently and unpredictably, Cat knows we must be ready.
“We have plans to put together a Peace Corp team in disaster relief work,” she said. “For that, we need resources, and we need an understanding of the bigger picture.”
Cat spoke about her big picture goals in emergency relief where culinary experts could take on an important role. “We’d like to have the Red Cross, United Nations call us for food relief. I believe in a year or so, the World for Food Program at the U.N. will work closely with us. There will be more missions with U.N.”
She also talked about the various layers of the big picture. “Number one is of course the emergency relief; but then, we need to help in rebuilding; and finally, the third step is creating sustainability,” Cat was eloquent about the various short- and long-terms aspects of any emergency-relief work. “We do want to use our Katrina experience,” she said.
Diane mentioned that some other like-minded groups such as Hollywood for Habitat are carrying out their noble mission for disaster-stricken people. “We want to reach out to them as well,” Cat agreed.
Chefs for Humanity has aspirations to work on various fronts. Cat mentioned hunger, diseases and droughts as examples where the organization can join forces in relief operations. To take on the enormous challenge, she indicated some of her plans to structure CFH from within.
“Our Chefs’ Council can have a couple of different tiers,” she said. “The top-tier will have a media and market focus. There will be other tiers of people doing other important things: conduct cooking classes, help to run culinary-art museums, and contribute in our missions and fundraisers.” Cat was outlining her vision for putting the organization on solid ground.
“The active chefs will organize one to two events a year to promote our cause and help in fundraising,” she said.
Cat also spoke about her upcoming trips to Nicaragua and Honduras, two impoverished nations.
“In the field of emergency relief, there’s a huge need in Nicaragua and Honduras. The Honduran children are suffering from many diseases. The enormous problems in Latin America are not getting as much attention as those, say, in Darfur. There’s not as much focus,” she said.
Cat’s fact-finding and awareness mission trips would be much welcome to all of us. Chefs for Humanity is going to be much enriched by the knowledge and information she brings back.
We’re just happy she’s doing it, and doing it all.
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(Cat Cora and Diane Burstein were interviewed by Dr. P. Banerjee, President, The Scriptline)