Repair / Refurbish Kitchen and Cafe Serving Free Meals to Those in Need

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With Farming Hope (farminghope.org), Bountiful Churchyards provides a free community meal for those in need at Noon on Thursdays on the campus of Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in San Jose, employing and training 3 unhoused or recently-housed persons at the same time to prepare the food. While the kitchen is quite spacious and was outfitted with commercial-grade equipment when first put in, maintenance on the space and its equipment has been deferred for some time, limiting what we can do now.

We'd like to increase the days/hours of meal service, increase the number of meals served, and add variety to what we prepare but really need to tackle the deferred maintenance first. To do that, however, we need one or more volunteers with experience repairing commercial grade equipment to guide us as we don't have the funding to hire out the work. The elements of the kitchen that need attention are:

• Gas range (U.S. Range 60" wide with 24" griddle, six burners, and two 26.5" ovens: pilots don't stay lit; general cleaning; inspection; teach us how to use it properly)
• Range hood (60" inches: exhaust fan no longer turns; and if ever we want to fry, fire suppression unit will need to be purchased and installed)
• Refrigerator (True Manufacturing Model TS-49 54" double doors, stainless steel: compressor seems to run endlessly)
• Dishwasher/sterilizer (Jackson Conserver XL: not properly filling, and equally important, we don't know how to use it)
• Walls (plaster needs repair and repainting; moldings need to be replaced)
• Hanging racks or shelves for pots and pans (we need to install some)
• General plumbing (we need to replacing seals and gaskets, re-caulk, clean filters and traps etc.)
• General lighting (we need to replace failing fluorescent tubes and ballasts, possibly even whole fixtures)