Kitchen Angels won't be hosting our in-person volunteer appreciation event this month. We have had such a good track record, with no transmissions of Covid in our facility, we would hate to jump the gun and gather before it was safe to do so. Cases are still high enough that we don't want to risk anyone's health.

Instead of gathering, we'll be offering our active volunteers restaurant gift cards. We want you all to dine in or carry out - on us. We will be distributing gift cards early in November. If you are a substitute volunteer, your card will be mailed to you. We may not be able to gather together in person, but we can still be together in spirit.

We are grateful for each and every one of our volunteers and all you do to make Kitchen Angels a fantastic place to volunteer. We're planning plenty of celebratory events in 2022, which will be the year of our 30th anniversary! Keep your sights set on the good things in life and we'll make it through.

We hope you had a chance to appreciate the strange fruit and vegetable carvings that showed up on our loading dock in October. They got a little wilted and shrunken by the time Halloween rolled around, which made them all the more interesting and creepy. It was mostly staff & their family/friends who contributed to the contest, but we did have a surprise mystery entry that made us very happy indeed!

The award for the most-admired squash art went to the Green Ghoul pictured top right. He didn't care that he won, and promptly at his prize whole.

Our next opportunity for you to express your creativity will come around Easter when we will have a hat contest, giving you a nice long time to prepare. Kitchen volunteers - this is your time to shine!

Kitchen Angels goes to great lengths to keep all of our volunteers and clients safe.

As most of you know, we adhere to strict food safety protocols in the kitchen to ensure our clients get high-quality, clean and safe food. Our volunteers check and double check dot colors to avoid giving clients foods they can't eat. Our nutritionist visits clients to confirm we have them on the correct diet track. We also screen our delivery drivers to make certain they are not convicted felons or sex offenders.

We care deeply about the safety and wellness of our volunteers as well. This attention to health really came into focus during Covid, when we asked each of you to screen your health before each shift. It was a lot to ask, but we managed to prevent the spread of Covid within our agency.

Through our knife-safety instructional video, we try to give volunteers basic knife skills so they can avoid any accidents while cutting. In the event a volunteer has an injury - either in the kitchen or anywhere else in and around the facility, we have first aid kits stocked and ready to use. Our main kit is attached to the wall right outside the kitchen in the delivery prep room. If an accident happens elsewhere in the facility, we have strategically-placed go-kits that you can grab and bring with you. One kit is in the volunteer room under the sign-in podium, another is hanging on the shelving in the loading dock part of the warehouse, and a third is in the small room across from Kitchenality.

In addition to first aid kits, Kitchen Angels now has an emergency AED (automatic external defibrillator) in the volunteer room. If anyone appears to be having a cardiac event, trained individuals can potentially save lives by restarting a heart beat. Every two years, Kitchen Angels' staff is re-certified in basic first aid, which includes CPR training.

With that in mind, please consider signing up for our next first aid training class. Staff will be renewing their certification early in 2022. We will announce the date once it is set. Kitchen Angels offers the class to some of our volunteers who are interested and think they can assist in emergency situations. It's a great opportunity to become more empowered through learning and to potentially save lives if the situation arises.

It's the month we've all be waiting for . . . World Vegan Month! Even if you are not a vegan or a vegetarian, with cooking-heavy holidays steadily approaching it might be a great time to try some new restaurants. Santa Fe just happens to have a few new and notable vegan places for you to explore.

First off is Root 66 Vegan Café located conveniently on Lena Street near Ikonic Coffee. Open during primo lunch hours Monday through Thursday, Root 66 serves their (cleverly named) Pit Stops, Main Attractions, and Road Trips with fresh vegetables, fruits, and homemade breads. A house specialty that sounds amazing is the white truffle shells and “cheese.” Don’t worry about what the cheese is actually made of, just sit and enjoy the hearty warm meal as the season continues to cool off.

Another great place to try is Plant Base Café which opened just this past spring. They split their menu into four different categories: Mexican, Italian, American, and dessert. This allows for even the pickiest of eaters to find something they’ll delight in. From queso to pasta to burgers, Plant Base Café might just be the perfect place for someone wanting to try vegetarian or vegan food for the first time.

If you’re more interested in the takeout lifestyle, Aruna Café is for you. With Indian inspired vegan cuisine that is only available for pick up on Friday evenings, the café has a set menu with an appetizer, main course, and dessert. The week of Halloween, for instance, Aruna Café will be serving squash soup with coconut milk, South Indian veggie kurma, and cardamom and rosewater cake. How could you possibly resist something so delicious (even if it is vegan).

Want to learn more about transitioning to a plant-based diet? Love listening to podcasts? Animal Protection New Mexico has a library of podcasts called "Teach Me How to Vegan." They have 34+ locally-relevant podcasts to choose from with more content added every other week. If lack of information is stopping you from eating more vegetarian/vegan foods, well, now you have no excuse!

It’s a fun coincidence that World Vegan Month coincides with the month that Americans gorge themselves on turkey and traditional sides that are normally not vegan. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have an excellent vegan meal one night and then go home and peruse the great "Thanksgiving side dish recipes" list from The Modern Proper. The photographs alone will make your mouth water, but the classic recipes with a twist will blow your mind. Anyone up for creamy Brussels sprouts with wild mushrooms? Or how about a broccoli cheese casserole? Some of these dishes might just make it into your regular fall meal planning rotation.

We are accepting volunteers for our Spirit of Giving mini-events, which are taking place in November and the first few days of December. We are keeping the events small, so attendees can spread out in our warehouse. The maximum number of volunteers allowed at each event is eight.

Sign-up sheets are in the volunteer room, or call/email Lauren to get your name on the roster. There are only a few people signed up at this time, and we would love to see larger shifts! Grab your friends, family and neighbors and fill an entire shift if you'd like.

Volunteers will be wrapping gifts, boxing up cookies, and putting together gift boxes. If the holidays are your "thing," then sign up and get into the spirit! All volunteers are required to be fully vaccinated.

The two shift times are AM (10-12) and PM (1-3). Here are the event date/times:

If you don't want to volunteer, but are interested in making a financial donation for the purchase of gifts, please contact Dwayne.

After such a hot summer, a lot of people are looking forward to the cool temperatures of fall and winter. But for the garden lover, there is still a lot of work to do even after all the harvesting is finished. Longtime gardeners might know exactly what “putting your garden to bed” means, but for those who picked up gardening as a pandemic hobby, The Spruce has a handy guide for how to get your garden ready for winter. Apart from picking any remaining vegetables or produce, it's important to prune plants that need it, weed, and pull annuals. Number one rule is to keep watering perennials until the ground freezes. The plants are dormant, but they haven’t died. Now is also the time to plant seeds of spinach, shrubs and trees, flowering bulbs, garlic, and rhubarb.

Do you have a caregiver in your life? Maybe your elderly parents are taken care of by a nurse, home health aide, or even a loved one. Maybe you had a caregiver during a long illness or rehabilitation. No matter what the situation, caregivers have incredibly difficult jobs but we could not function as a society without them. As we try to be thankful this November, let’s not forget that it is National Caregivers Appreciation Month. Caregiver.com has some nice ideas for how to help caregivers relax. Even the smallest things can help: a paid night off, a gift card to their favorite coffee spot, or just a show of appreciation. As volunteers at Kitchen Angels, we might understand a bit more about the hardships of caregiving than the average person, so make sure to pass this along to anyone you know who might have an important caregiver in their life.

New Mexico now requires callers to dial the 505 or 575 area codes for in-state phone numbers.

The change was brought about when the Federal Communications Commission decided to adopt the 988 dialing code to be used for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (starting July 2022). In areas that have used the 988 prefix, it became necessary to add the area code.

Dr. David Scrase, cabinet secretary for the New Mexico Department of Health notes, “It’s a minor inconvenience to reprogram the area code 505 or 575 in our phones but it will make a huge difference if it will save a life and someone can call 988 when they’re having a mental health crisis.”

If you forget to add the area code, an automated recording will remind you to hang up and dial again using the area code and seven-digit telephone number.

While on the subject of area codes, a quick reminder . . . if you are a delivery volunteer who has an out-of-state area code on your cell phone, your client might not recognize your phone number when you are calling about their meal delivery. Don't hesitate to call the Kitchen Angels office for assistance. We often make calls on behalf of drivers, and get through because our number is recognized. We are happy to help troubleshoot client delivery issues . . . and we pick up the phone!

We are thrilled to partner with the Santa Fe Community College Controlled Environment Agriculture Department. The program utilizes aquaponics, hydroponics, and a variety of sustainable methods of crop enhancement to teach students the latest trends in agriculture. Their onsite greenhouses produce loads of root vegetables, lettuce, zucchini, tomatoes, herbs and much more, which they will be donating to Kitchen Angels year round.

Kitchen Angels also benefits from SFCC's culinary arts program. In the past year, Ambrose Bickett has interned in our kitchen twice. Ambrose is a recent graduate from the culinary arts program. He gets paid, on-site kitchen training while gaining valuable experience that we hope will serve him well in the future.

Many thanks to Santa Fe Community College for sharing its bounty and knowledgeable students with Kitchen Angels!

Lauren wants to give yet another shout out to the folks in the kitchen and delivery who take more than one shift per week. As the seasons change, Kitchen Angels typically sees fewer volunteers signing up, and more folks traveling or unable to volunteer anymore. We rely heavily on our substitute list and the individuals willing to put in an extra shift.

In the kitchen, we are grateful to Barbara Greene, Bruce Palmer, Chuck Zobac, Dallas Rhodes, Elsie Killoran, Maria Goldstein, Meg Miezwa, and Michael Brendle. These aren't the only kitchen volunteers to work two shifts, but they consistently answer our calls when we're in a pinch.

For delivery, Bob Cothram, Judith Erger, Jennie Sparks, Karen Meador, Mateo Messer, Naomi & Ward Kroencke, Phyllis Bolen, Rose Bramble, San Williams, and Tamara Banar say YES more often than not when we have routes with no drivers. They don't hesitate to take two or even three shifts per week when we need it.

This list is by no means complete, but we wanted to acknowledge the superstars of the past few months who have made our seasonal transition time so much easier. As we near Thanksgiving, new volunteers begin to surface. We are grateful for the good work our volunteers donate year round. We all know that hunger happens every day of the year.

Many thanks to US Bank for sponsoring our Thanksgiving meal this year! The clients will receive a magnificent feast because of their generosity. Kitchen Angels relies on contributions from businesses, agencies, banks, and individuals to support our programs. If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a holiday sponsor, please contact Dwayne at 505-471-7780 X 204.