The Brownsville Community Culinary Center, a nonprofit that offers free culinary training and nutritional education, has been awarded a 2025 Spark Prize from Brooklyn Org.
The Spark Prize is an annual award that grants unrestricted $100,000 funding to five Brooklyn-based nonprofit organizations demonstrating a strong commitment to racial and social justice.
The nonprofit, founded by executive director and executive chef Alexis Aquino, will expand its culinary training and workforce development programs with the funding.
"It was important to us to provide a hub where we can provide access to healthy food, but also allow folks to be empowered through their diets, to make better choices and to creative longevity in their own lives," Aquino said in an interview with BK Reader.
Aquino said the high rates of preventable illnesses like diabetes in Brownsville called for initiatives to empower residents to make healthier food choices.
“We’re creating community as folks are able to sit down at the table and have a good, quality meal," he said. "That is the beginning of them having a household that is growing healthy together, having a household that has provision, where you can feel like you have ownership of your own quality of life."
Since its founding, BCCC has served more than 400,000 meals, including 10,000 meals per week at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The center has also graduated over 100 trainees from its culinary program.
