Do you want to raise money for your church? Here, Steelplan Kitchens explains how a new church kitchen can provide you a great return on your investment.
At Steelplan, we understand that raising the funds for a major kitchen project isn’t easy. That’s why you need a kitchen that won’t just survive the weekly demands of serving congregations, but will actively support future fundraising efforts.
A new kitchen isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s the gateway to an additional revenue stream for your church, as better catering facilities will allow you to justify renting out space for events, including:
- Weddings
- Conferences
- Committee meetings
- Concerts
- Community meals
- Movie nights
A community café helps raise revenues
We’ve spoken before about the potential of churches to serve as a hub for their local community, while feeding back into their revenues in the process. If you want to expand beyond a congregation-only tea or coffee after Sunday Service and provide a professionally managed community café, you’ll need a semi-commercial kitchen that can keep up with that demand. See for example St Paul’s Aberystwyth church, which upgraded its kitchen to support its weekday coffee bar and events (while also offering charitable help and support to homeless people).
If you want to hire out your church for domestic events, the standard wooden/domestic kitchen won’t meet environmental health standards. Wooden kitchens aren’t durable enough, are harder to keep clean and are more susceptible to damage. They are also more likely to absorb water and harbour insects/pests that can spread bacteria – a big no-no for a church trying to host events with lots of people. Instead, a semi-commercial kitchen made with a strong, durable carcass will stand the test of time, comply with health standards and support all kinds of large events.
Just take a look at Our Lady Queen of Peace Church in Worcester, where something is always going on – a children’s nursery running every day from 8am until 5pm, AA meetings, Spanish dancing glasses and parish groups. They needed a kitchen space that could deliver food and drink for all types of people at different times of the day.
“Our kitchen is in a fairly tight space, and it needed to have everything you’d expect to find in a kitchen – cooking, wet area, refrigeration, and servery – but still be safe and easy to use,” said Reverend Paul O’Connor at the time. After Steelplan installed a semi-commercial kitchen with a steel frame and powder-coated doors, Paul has this to say: “The units are very sturdy. It will certainly last. And we were able to make certain cupboards lockable, which was important for some of our groups and made the kitchen safer.”
Building a durable kitchen to support community events
A semi-commercial kitchen made with stainless-steel worktops and powder-coated steel cabinets provides the perfect blend of durability and warmth that your community kitchen needs. If you want to support larger gatherings and bring in additional funding, a semi-commercial kitchen is the perfect choice.
Whether you are planning to host larger events such as weddings or smaller events such as cookery evenings, having a strong, durable kitchen will ensure that these events go off without a hitch and are well stocked and easy to use for volunteers/caterers who haven’t visited the kitchen before.
Are you looking to fund your next kitchen project? Ready to install a new kitchen to kickstart your revenue? Contact Steelplan Kitchens today by calling 0844 809 9186, or email us at [email protected].
