Nuestra Culinary Ventures To Close
After close to eight years of operation, Nuestra will close its culinary incubator, Nuestra Culinary Ventures, on June 30th. With the current economic crisis creating additional challenges, Nuestra cannot afford to incur the incubator’s ongoing annual operating losses. With the current economic crisis creating additional challenges for all nonprofits, Nuestra’s priority must be stabilizing our service area of Roxbury and North Dorchester. The importance of responding effectively to the crisis of foreclosed, abandoned and blighted properties was a key factor in the decision to transition out of the food service business. In particular, this decision will allow Nuestra to strengthen its operations within the Dacia Foreclosure Intervention Target area, a section of the Roxbury and North Dorchester communities identified by the City as dealing with a high rate of foreclosure. “Currently, Nuestra’s neighborhoods are struggling with some of the highest rates of foreclosure in the city. We are doing everything we can right now to acquire foreclosed properties, prevent foreclosure, prevent acquisitions by speculators, which often leave homes vacant, and lead community safety initiatives. We have to concentrate our resources to ensure that as many families as possible stay in the community,” remarked David Price, Nuestra’s Executive Director. Over the next two months, Nuestra will be actively working with the sixteen culinary entrepreneurs still operating out of the kitchen to find new resources and locations from which to operate. Culinary businesses are also being pursued to move into the incubator space, which is a 5,000 square foot industrial kitchen with a walk-in refrigerator and freezer. At the present time, Nuestra is searching for resources to assist the current users in relocating. “This decision was not made in haste. We made every effort over a two-year period to sustain the kitchen’s operations. In the end, we determined that Nuestra’s role in stabilizing the community through this economic crisis is of utmost importance,” concluded Mr. Price.
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