After long journey, Taproot Kitchen’s vision comes to life in new State College location

Taproot Kitchen has long been a member of Happy Valley’s local food ecosystem. The organization serves many members of the community by working with local farms to glean ethically sourced food. That food makes its way to farmers markets or catered events, and, all the while, Taproot Kitchen provides adults with intellectual abilities empowering opportunities to work within the community.

Taproot Kitchen is now approaching its latest iteration, with a new location at the Nittany Mall and expanded resources. However, the journey has been a long one.

Pre-pandemic, Taproot Kitchen had increased its catering capabilities and employment, with hopes to renovate The Meetinghouse on South Atherton Street in downtown State College to suit the nonprofit’s needs. When the pandemic began, though, Taproot Kitchen co-founder Sharon Schafer said, it “changed everything.” As social distancing made catering operations impossible, the organization looked to other opportunities.

With community support, they began offering products via local farmers markets, but as funds continued to dwindle, Taproot Kitchen paused operations in 2021.

“We had to dedicate ourselves to preserving funds for ... future plans,” Schafer said. “We weren’t sure of what the next steps were, except we knew we had to reorganize the organization, [and] bring in new people with expertise and board members with a specific desire to foster our vision.”

At the end of the day, she said, the pandemic forced and enabled a needed transition.

As the board — which Schafer described as being filled with “really dedicated and really quite talented” individuals — and other community partners began to envision Taproot Kitchen’s future, the organization’s ideas for building community spaces and fostering community development evolved to include the concept of a shared kitchen space. The space would support not only Taproot Kitchen’s catering and similar operations, but also be open to local farmers and producers in need of such a space.

Now, having received multiple grants to bring this vision to life, Taproot Kitchen is prepping for a Sept. 14 grand opening at its new space within the Nittany Mall. When choosing the space, which was previously home to cheesesteak chain Charley’s, the Taproot Kitchen team noted that it was already outfitted with much of the equipment needed for operations, and could also be up and running more quickly than other available spaces.

The space has been semi-operational for a few months, with a “soft opening” in April, but the time since has been used to help the organization adjust to the change, balance the new space with its other operations and prepare the space for eventual farmers and producers to rent. Once the space is formally open, though, Schafer foresees it fitting seamlessly into Taproot Kitchen’s identity.

When asked about her vision for this new, evolved Taproot Kitchen identity, she said, “It is the joy and well-being associated with a strong local food system that sustains people [and] connects people, especially people who are disconnected — like people with disabilities, who are very marginalized and really don’t yet have enough opportunity to do meaningful and gainful work, even volunteer work.

“It’s the inherent joy and well-being that comes from that, and that also comes from a more sustainable food system, one that is really doing something significant to support local food and farmers, and reduce the impacts of climate change. That’s my vision and, to me, it comes together very well.”

It’s a vision that would not have been realized, Schafer noted, had Taproot Kitchen not had such extensive community support throughout its lifetimes, both leading up to 2020 and in the uncertain years that followed.

Stay up to date on all the latest from Taproot Kitchen, on Facebook, at www.facebook.com/TaprootKitchenSC. Opportunities are also available for new volunteers and board members, and more information can be found at www.taprootkitchen.org.

This story was originally published August 3, 2024 at 6:04 AM.