Entrepreneurship and COVID-19: Ekta Amarnani launches Mom's Kitchen to bring dignity to food charity
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The COVID-19 pandemic has been hard for everyone, including young, self-identifying women in career and business. With this new interview series we want to highlight women entrepreneurs who are rising to meet its challenges, but also to its new opportunities.
Read how amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Ekta Amarnani saw a need in her community and decided it was time for her to courageously address it as a social entrepreneur.
Ekta Amarnani, Social Entrepreneur & Director, Mom's Kitchen
Ekta, the COVID-19 outbreak has shaken the entire world and changed so much of our personal and professional realities, perspectives, and more. What has been the impact for you?
It really has - crazy think about how much can happen in so little time! For me, I got laid off 2 months in, which like for most, was a stressful transition financially, professionally, and emotionally. But I also think all the down time really let me listen to myself. For the first time I felt like I had a choice over my life and my future: figuring out how to be in peace with solitude and to how create a routine that works for myself.
You launched the Mom's Kitchen initiative during the pandemic. Congratulations! But why now?
Well, I got laid off, which meant I had all this free time. I live alone and with COVID I was really just spending a lot of time by myself. I’ve always wanted to work for myself and I knew at least I’d have CERB coming in for the time being. As long as I had a shoestring budget, I’d be able to spend some time developing this idea. So I started to really develop Mom’s Kitchen. It was an idea that I had toyed with for YEARS, but could never commit because I was scared to quit my stable job.
The day I decided that I was going to commit to this, I incorporated as a nonprofit and started working on it. In 3 months I secured a kitchen, chefs, community partners as clients. I asked a friend to make me a logo. I had the website built, all the copy done for newsletters and website, delivery drivers, food containers, cutlery, etc.. I had to do everything with a near zero budget (bad timing to get laid off!) and all the COVID stuff on top of that. It’s crazy how much we can get done when we really, really need to!
It sounds like one door closed, so another could open! Tell us a little bit more about the concept of Mom’s Kitchen.
Mom’s Kitchen at its core is a food security initiative. The main mission of MK is to provide food charity with dignity. For most people receiving emergency food relief, the experience involves lining up for an hour to receive food that is past its best before date, low quality, ultra-processed, and that they don’t connect with culturally.
Mom’s Kitchen is trying to change the way we think of food charity. We want it to be a dignifying experience and we want it to be food that people can connect with culturally.
We deliver cooked meals to anyone who would like one using a pay-what-you-can model. All our food is cooked by immigrant women who are ineligible for CERB and have no other current source of income. They cook traditional, home-style meals. Our hope is that these meals will remind some of home, while inviting others to partake in food cultures that they otherwise would not have access to.
Lastly, we work to boost the chef's food businesses. We provide them with one-on-one branding and marketing services, plus $100 to spend on marketing products like business cards, stickers, website, etc. Whether they need help designing a logo, business card, their menu, or even building their website, we help them with that.
Our approach is individualized so that each chef receive services that make sense to where their business is at. We promote the chefs on our website and social media accounts, in hopes that our promotion will lead to increasing their client base.
How do you envision Mom's Kitchen impacting the community?
My hope is that Mom’s Kitchen will not only provide food relief to those who need it, but also act as a means of connecting people with food from their culture. I also see Mom’s Kitchen as an opportunity for our community to help each other out by providing people the opportunity to pay for someone else’s meal.
I see Mom’s Kitchen as building community resilience: offering employment opportunities and financial security for community members that otherwise would not have them.
When did you first think about becoming a social entrepreneur?
I’ve been toying with the idea for about 3 years. I actually started a small social venture 3 years ago, but at the time I was also working full time, and didn’t have the capacity to give it the attention it needed. I learned a lot from that project, and have taken those lessons learnt for Mom’s Kitchen.
Read: YWiB Role Model Interviews: Kirthan Aujlay talks death acceptance and green funerals
How can other local young women get involved or support you?
We are completely volunteer-run at the moment; all our volunteers are providing their skills pro-bono. If any local young women have ideas they’d like to share, or skills and services and the time to offer them to further our mission, we are always happy to grow and expand into new spaces. They can get in touch with us using the contact form on our website, or emailing us directly at momskitchento@Gmail.com
Connect with Ekta: Instagram Website
A dietitian and social justice warrior, Ekta Amarnani has been working in the community development and food security space for 7 years now. Her work centers around humanizing the food charity experience; she has worked with various nonprofit agencies in India, Australia, Taiwan, and Canada to develop community-based programming addressing issues related to food insecurity and community nutrition. Most recently, Ekta has started her own food-focused nonprofit organization, with the hopes of filling some of the gaps in community food security we see in Toronto.