The Kitchen
We’re opening!
Community Open House: Wed, March 12 5:00
Update: Feb 12, 2025
Dear friends, big news. As we put up the last shelf, screw on the plug covers, and hang the light fixtures, we are glowing inside. Casandra Fletcher, Lisa Giroday, and Jack Chen – the kitchen dream team, along with a whoooole bunch of your friends and local businesses, is buttoning this project up.
18 months ago, we began the plans for a community commissary kitchen at One Tiny Farm. We imagined food waste projects, food business start-ups, elders and children, learning, events, and equipment that would scale up our beloved Tool Library – commercial freeze dryer, grain mills, tin canning machines, dehydrators. It’s here.
Lucky for us, some amazing funders believed in us and wanted to invest in you and our community – the good folks from @United Way BC, Island Coastal Economic Trust, @Agrifood Canada, @Vancouver Coastal Health, @Farm Credit Canada, @sunshine coast credit union and our very own Laurie O’Byrne, along with Marlena Blavin & David Roche through @Marin Foundation. THANK YOU. This is extraordinary!
The kitchen is ready to welcome you!
Please join us March 12:
5:15 – 5:45 – Kitchen Open House
5:45 – 6:30 – AGM
6:30 – 7:30 – Community Potluck
We are so excited to show you around!
What’s it for?
More than just a community kitchen, this mini-commissary is gardenside, creating an indoor-outdoor flow for learning, groups, events, and projects.
With unique equipment like a stone grain mill, commercial freeze dryer, pressure canners, vacuum sealers and tin canning machine, not only can we preserve food when it’s bountiful, but we can preserve it creatively, learn in the process, empower new food projects and small business startups, and share this food with people in our communities who need it! It’s a hub to connect all the pieces.
Food Skills & Education
A hub for mentors, teachers & learners, we focus on food literacy, nutrition, traditional and cultural food preservation, fermentation, emergency preparedness, and more.
Seed Saving & Trials
In a sterile environment, farmers & growers can process, sort and package saved seed, and study for variety trials and regional seed development in the face of climate change.
Connections
Nurturing our community’s spiritual and mental well being, in an inviting and accessible space where there’s a sense of belonging, connecting ideas, generations and cultures.
Charitable Food
A base for volunteers to cook inclusive meals for people facing barriers to nutritious food, distributed through a mobile Soup Kitchen, seniors’ programs, food kits, or events.
Food Waste & Rescue
Food rescue projects get food where it belongs – into bellies, instead of the landfill or attracting bears into yards. Fruit tree picks and farm bounty become jams, soups, syrup, dehydrated snacks, or freeze-dried meals.
Product & Business Development
Acting as a micro-commissary, small food businesses can experiment, create, and package for farmers markets, retail, and beyond.
Pop-up Food Ventures
Chefs can host on-farm pop-ups to trial new menu offerings or host multi-course meals in a beautiful, serene setting inside the “Secret Garden” gates.
Bulk Buying Club
Ferry-dependent, rural communities can benefit by bulk buying off-Coast, and using the kitchen to split, weigh, repackage, and share high quality grains, flours, legumes, and meat.
This is your space
Nestled in the lush gardens and food hub of One Tiny Farm in the heart of Roberts Creek, the Kitchen is comfortable and functional. Armed with restaurant-grade equipment and mobile work islands, this flexible garden-side kitchen creates the perfect area for events, an enriching class or canning your small-batch pickles destined for the farmers market.
This space is for:
One Straw Members
Rent the space to connect around food
Chefs & Caterers
Open a pop-up or use the space for catering preparation
Makers & Producers
Use a sterile, equipped space for batch production
Non-profits
& Schools
Take the classroom into the kitchen
Farmers & Gardeners
Meet, sort, trial & repackage your seeds.
Renters / Event hosts
Book for weddings, corporate events, meetings, private classes and more!
Funded by the good people at:
And the heroes of our local community, who donated their skills, equipment & time:
Become a member
Membership supports our work and keeps you connected, but you also get perks like local discounts, VIP early ticket sales to things like long table dinners & foodbox sales!
Volunteer
By volunteering with us you are contributing to food security on the coast, and ensuring we can continue to do good work in the community!
