• Vision & Impact

    All are nourished, all belong, and all prosper.

Creating generational impact in the City of Milwaukee

Kinship has always been more than a place to pick up food. Neighbors come through our doors and step into a community — shopping, cooking, growing, and sharing food together. Food is an entry point to alleviate not only physical hunger, but a hunger for connection. Our model is built on a simple belief: everyone gives, everyone receives. By building Milwaukee's first Community Food Center we’ll give that proven model room to grow.

The impact of the new center will be felt for generations. Every neighbor nourished, stabilized, and thriving becomes someone who strengthens the community around them. This is what we can build together: not just a bigger building, but a deeper, more lasting difference in our city.

 

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Letter from the President & CEO

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  • Letter from the President & CEO

Photo by Tom Grimm
“Kinship is not just our name, Kinship is our strategy.”
— Vincent Noth,
President & CEO

Dear Friends,

We are proud to champion the development of Milwaukee's first Community Food Center, a blueprint for the future of food communities. The new 28,000-square-foot building will rise at the corner of Holton and Locust Streets, in the heart of the community we serve.

Kinship has spent the last decade of our 47-year history proving an innovative model that is changing the way hunger is addressed in Milwaukee.

When a person walks into Kinship, they enter a social ecosystem designed to propel their journey toward health, belonging, and stability. As people shop, cook, grow, and share food, they find social connectedness and support that generates the confidence to achieve their goals.

We invite you to be a part of this transformational project, whether that is through investing financially, spreading the word, or sharing your own story of food and kinship.

Together, we can create a community where all are nourished, all belong, and all prosper.

With Deep Gratitude,

– Vincent Noth, President & CEO

The Impact

Five Year Projections

Our new home will allow us to expand our programming and increase our impact over the next five years and beyond.

100% increase in access to our
free food market, doubling the number of service days and serving 110,500 people

2.8 million pounds in healthful food distributed, valued at $5.3 million - a 65% increase

67,000 volunteers trained on the root causes of poverty, compelling them to deeper service and advocacy

80 trainees hired and empowered toward long-term employment

140,000 hours of development provided to trainees, including coaching, workshops, therapeutic supports, and professional growth to help trainees find stability, healing, and transformation

110 volunteer mentors and coaches trained and activated to provide crisis assistance and mentoring

1,400 households in crisis stabilized through mentoring relationships, a 50% increase

500 households prevented from eviction or homelessness through assistance, mediation, financial planning, and coaching – mitigating $4.3M in economic impact of eviction on our community

  • What We're Building

Grocery & Community Space

A free food market that integrates a community meal site, collaborative cooking, and wellness education.

The space will be able to adapt into a community or event space with capacity up to 250.

Social Enterprise Production Space

A revenue generating production and catering kitchen to expand our culinary workforce training and employment. This space will operate in addition to the Kinship Café at ThriveOn King.

Crisis Resource & Partner Areas

Private consultation and multi-purpose training spaces to address barriers to stability (housing, education, transportation, etc.).

Partner spaces allow us to offer services beyond food. We’ll be able to offer space to organizations providing preventive health, behavioral health, financial literacy, addiction support, spiritual support, and physical well-being services.

 

Educational Greenhouse

The greenhouse will provide opportunities to offer garden skills education, as well as provide accessible fresh produce to be used in the on-site kitchen.

It will operate in addition to our current 27,000 square foot urban hoop house vegetable farm where neighbors harvest thousands of pounds of organic produce to feed the hungry, host educational events, and share community meals.

Courtyard, Chapel & More

The courtyard and chapel will offer spaces for the community to participate in recreation, prayer, and reflection.

Dedicated off-street parking will provide space for Kinship vans as well as 50 cars.

Centralized offices for programming and administration will decrease overhead costs.

A load-in dock for food deliveries and ample cold and dry storage will allow us to accept larger donations of food and household goods.

Choosing Kinship’s Place

The new location on the corner of Holton and Locust Streets is walkable and centrally-located in the heart of the community we serve.

It also reinvigorates an important commercial corridor, serving as a strategic bridge for the Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods.

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  • Kinship is building Milwaukee's first Community Food Center to continue the work that Kinship started 47 years ago to relieve the financial stress of food insecurity and dietary illness for thousands of low-to-moderate income households at the meeting point of the Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods.

  • We are building our new Community Food Center on a one-acre vacant lot at 421 E. Locust Street, on the southwest corner of N. Holton and W. Locust streets.

  • We have outgrown our old space. For years we have subleased a basement space that requires:

    • Weekly set up and tear down

    • A limited schedule for access and programming

    • Confined spaces that create congestion and pose a liability

    • Limits to quality food storage and the acceptance of larger food donations

    • Entrances and exits that are not accessible

    • Limited private space for consultation

    Our current space hinders our ability to run our programs efficiently and safely.

  • A Community Food Center is a new approach to addressing hunger and wellbeing that responds to our community's desire for stronger connections, better wellness programming, and more support for housing and employment stability.

    Through the power of food, Community Food Centers help residents build nourishment, belonging, and prosperity in low-income communities, while bringing people from all cultural and economic backgrounds together.

  • We’re committed to staying in the area we've served for 47 years. We searched for a new location for five years to make sure we found the best spot to continue serving our community.

    Kinship purchased an empty lot at 2851 N. Holton Street, at the crossroads of the Riverwest and Harambee neighborhoods in the February 2025.

  • Our 28,000-square-foot Community Food Center will:

    • Expand Kinship's grocery and meal capacity in an accessible, operationally safe, and efficient manner

    • Increase current services to support resident stability and combat social isolation

    • Offer additional services in health, financial literacy, and physical and emotional well-being

    • Broaden our workforce culinary and employment program by launching a second business in a state-of-the-art catering and production kitchen

    Our new home will allow us to expand our programming and increase our impact.

  • After carefully exploring whether the trees could be preserved, our team concluded that removing the trees on the lot was necessary to build the best possible Community Food Center for our neighborhood.

    However, this does not mean a loss of green space. At our new site, we will repurpose the trees that were removed and plant 30 new ones. The space will also include activated outdoor areas, such as gardens and a greenhouse, creating welcoming green spaces for the community.

  • Yes. All of Kinship's services will continue exactly as they are now at our current site throughout the construction process. Nothing about how anyone accesses our programs is changing during the build. Once the new Community Food Center is complete, we'll transition our services to the new location and share full details about the move well ahead of time.

  • According to our construction timeline, our building is estimated to be complete by summer 2027.

  • We anticipate some increased noise from construction vehicles and activity, as well as minor disruptions on the surrounding streets during the building process.

    We greatly appreciate your patience during this time and look forward to completing the new Food Center in the summer of 2027.

  • Building a Place for Kinship is a community effort, and there are many ways to be part of it:

    To learn more or discuss how you'd like to give, contact Jen Mehr, Director of Mission Advancement, at jen@kinshipmke.org.

  • Yes! For our food services, we primarily serve the 53202, 53203, 53211, 53212, and 53217 zip codes.

    For our volunteering and other programming, we welcome people from all neighborhoods to join us in creating community.

    As we get closer to completing construction, we will share further details about how to get involved.