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Photo by Steve Johnson Food service director Diane Spicher removes mashed potatoes from the oven in the new ACCESS Community Kitchen. The kitchen provides 640 meals a day for needy seniors, disabled people and low-income children. A fund-raising drive for the final $250,000 needed is kicking off today. Kitchen seeks serving of donations Final part of ACCESS fund drive starts today By JOHN DARLING MEDFORD -- The large, new ACCESS Community Kitchen in North Medford has been up and running for four months, preparing 640 meals a day for needy seniors, disabled people and low-income children. Today, ACCESS kicked off the fund drive to pay for the final $250,000 of the nearly $2 million kitchen and snag a quarter-million dollar matching grant. Located behind Costco in north Medford, the 5,600-square-foot ACCESS Community Kitchen opened July 12 and has prepared 78,000 meals for the needy, said ACCESS director Patty Claeys. "This is the absolutely basic need of our community -- to help people who need to eat," said Patsy Smullin, president of California-Oregon Broadcasting, Inc. and a member of the fund drive steering committee. "ACCESS is a proven business that helps people who soon are able to be there helping others." The kitchen is "state of the art," said Claeys, and includes huge mixers, kettles, walk-in refrigerators and a dozen large convection ovens. An adjacent dining room offers noon meals for seniors, which soon will be augmented with noontime classes on such subjects as estate planning and computer operation, ACCESS deputy director Kathy Herod said. For two years before construction of the new kitchen, the food for ACCESS programs was prepared in a kitchen in Grants Pass and had to be driven 25 miles south before being distributed. Before that, food was prepared in a county-owned nursing home in Talent. In summer, the Community Kitchen supplies lunches to needy children at two Boys and Girls Club sites in White City and to Barnett Town Homes, a housing project owned and managed by ACCESS, Claeys said. The organization hopes to expand the children's lunch program next summer to Shady Cove, Butte Falls, Prospect, Gold Hill and Central Point, added Herod. Through courses offered jointly by Rogue Community College and Southern Oregon University, the Community Kitchen this winter will begin offering a nine-month cooking course leading ACCESS clients to certification by the American Culinary Association and to jobs in the food service and hospitality industry, Herod said. Using its Community Kitchen, ACCESS next July will start a Food Recovery Program to collect, process, package and distribute food cooked but not served by local restaurants, hospitals and colleges, said Herod. Another goal for the new kitchen is to expand senior meal service to dinners and weekends instead of just lunches, Herod said. "We also hope to increase our revenue stream by preparing meals for other senior programs in Northern California and up to Douglas County," she added. The Community Kitchen was created at a cost of $1.99 million, of which $1.74 million was raised from foundations, large individual gifts and a public fund-raising effort. Upon raising the final $250,000, ACCESS will receive a $250,000 matching grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust. Among major contributors are Asante Health Systems, $100,000; Providence Hospital, $30,000; Boise-Cascade, $50,000; Geld-wen Foundation, $25,000; Patricia D. and William B. Smullin Foundation, $27,000; and Naumes Family Foundation, $25,000. ACCESS started in 1976 with Loaves & Fishes, a program to feed seniors at dining centers and to deliver meals to home-bound seniors and disabled people. In 1981, ACCESS became a Regional Coordinating Agency for distribution of surplus foods from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Through its Food Share program, ACCESS distributes emergency groceries at 14 locations. It also helps the needy with housing, utility bills, rent, counseling and support to families. It employs 65 people and uses 400 volunteers. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA