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About Us
Non-Profit Catering Serving Charities
We serve those facing hardship and inequality in the Dallas area by partnering with small, under-funded non-profit organizations to provide hot meals and services.
“Our mission is to take feeding off your plate, so you can focus on your mission."
Cooking for the Crowd began with a simple yet profound realization: small non-profit organizations inefficiently spend much of their time and resources feeding the people they serve, regardless of their actual mission.
About Cooking for the Crowd
Many small non-profits spend a surprising amount of time and money feeding the people they serve, even when meals aren't their core mission. Cooking for the Crowd exists to change that, freeing organizations to focus on what they do best.
Our story begins with Elizabeth Furrh, who started volunteering in the kitchen of Saint Patrick's Refugee Outreach Program in 2016. The program helps refugees build new lives in the U.S. through ESL classes, citizenship courses, and legal assistance, and every Sunday it fed over 200 community members. After a year of volunteering, Elizabeth took over kitchen operations and joined the Board of Directors. That's when she discovered something striking: 45% of the program's annual budget was going to an outside catering company, leaving less money for core services and putting nutritionally poor meals on the table.
Good food shouldn't come at the cost of a non-profit's mission. That's where we come in.
Most small nonprofits are spending a significant amount of their budget on food instead of their mission.
A former restaurant owner with a passion for cooking, Elizabeth stepped in. She took over meal preparation herself, cutting costs dramatically while serving fresher, healthier, more filling meals for less than 10% of their annual budget. Over the next four years, Cooking for the Crowd saved the Refugee Outreach Program over $60,000, money that now goes toward classroom materials, scholarships for refugee students, and emergency needs.
That experience revealed a broader truth: countless small non-profits are spending far too much of their budget and energy on feeding people instead of pursuing their core mission. Cooking for the Crowd was born to solve that.
Our "Why"
We believe love, respect, and dignity are the foundation of human potential, and that a shared meal is one of the simplest and most powerful ways to express all three. There's something that happens when people gather around a table together. Barriers come down, common ground is found, and community is built.
Cooking for the Crowd exists to create that experience. Whether you're volunteering your time, contributing your resources, or sitting down to receive a warm meal, everyone has a place at our table.
For small non-profits, we know your mission is bigger than meals. Let us handle the cooking so you can focus on the work that only you can do. Because at the end of the day, love is a homemade lunch.
