Dear Volunteers,
I am pleased to reach out to you today with the next update on our Expansion Campaign.
We are thrilled to announce that we have signed a lease for our temporary home in Brooklyn. We are excited that we will be operating from the former Pfizer Building at 630 Flushing Avenue in Brooklyn while our building here on Spring Street and Sixth Avenue is expanded and renovated.
As you know, our first priority is always our clients and making sure they receive the meals they need. To avoid any disruption in our clients’ meal service, our first task will be renovating the kitchen and delivery spaces in Brooklyn, starting now, so that when we move, we will be fully operational from day one.
Our construction management firm and their team of contractors have been busy planning the renovation of the Brooklyn kitchen and delivery areas and are prepared to file their plans and start the renovation shortly We will be cooking and freezing up to four weeks of extra meals for clients that we will be delivering during the transition from the SoHo kitchen to the Brooklyn kitchen and for the completion of the transition to the chilled/frozen model. For those of you who work in our kitchen, I thank you in advance for the increased chopping, prepping and pack-out that you may be doing.
Our current plan is as follows. The SoHo kitchen will be moved starting Thursday, September 26. We will move out of SoHo on Friday, September 27 and work over that weekend to get everything ready for our “grand opening” on Monday, September 30. On that day, we will finish setting up the Brooklyn kitchen, conduct deliveries out of our Brooklyn home, and operate all offices as usual from Brooklyn. Our first day cooking in Brooklyn should be October 1, 2013. We will continue to communicate with you to confirm these dates as the construction gets underway.
As you plan transportation, remember the address of our Brooklyn home is 630 Flushing Avenue. The Flushing Avenue stop on the G train is on the corner of the Pfizer building, and the Flushing Avenue station on the J and M trains is a few blocks from the building.
The move to Brooklyn will certainly be an adjustment for all of us, and we continue to seek to make the transition as smooth as possible for our volunteers. We have done some trial runs, as I know some of you have as well. Last week, a number of staff members took public transportation from their homes to the Brooklyn site. Some came from as far away as New Jersey and several traveled from various neighborhoods in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. The most common feedback was that the commute from their homes was easier than they expected. Our staff was also impressed with the interesting co-tenants and the community-like “vibe” they encountered throughout the building.
Check out the website at 630flushing.com to see photos of the Brooklyn building and learn more about it. We intend to do everything we can to make sure you have a great experience once we move, even though for many volunteers the commute will not be as convenient as traveling to SoHo.
Thanks to all of you who took the time to complete the Volunteer Move Survey that we circulated a number of weeks ago. The feedback you provided has proved to be extremely helpful, and we are now considering how all of this will affect our volunteer shifts. We are committed to keeping you informed throughout this process and intend to communicate any shift changes as soon as we have details to share.
I will be hosting a couple of informal “Coffee Chats” so that I can respond to any questions or concerns you might have about the upcoming move and to discuss the future of God’s Love. We will keep you posted as we finalize plans for these events. In the meantime, please contact David Ludwigson at dludwigson@glwd.org or me at kpearl@glwd.org if you have comments or questions.
Thank you for your amazing dedication to God’s Love and to our clients. We look forward to continuing this journey with you as we forge ahead towards a new chapter for our organization and our clients.
All my best,
Karen