LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Bright and early every Monday and Thursday morning, the Ghost Unit Kitchen is abuzz as chefs prepare, pack and send hundreds of meals for our community's most vulnerable - seniors.
"If we help one person a day, we've done something positive," said chef Jon Batista, who owns YourPanadas food truck and helped start Chefs4Vegas.
Since early in the pandemic, Batista and chef Jordon Dunewood have helped far more than one person a day. They started feeding around 50 seniors a week but have since grown to about 400.
Each senior gets a delivery of six meals - planned and prepared by the two professional chefs - who have are part of the Ghost Unit Kitchen and have joined to form Chefs4Vegas.
"With all the hardship going on if you can open one of our meals and say 'wow, this is a gourmet dinner that I'm receiving' is really our goal and it's really what we're focused on," said Batista.
Delivering delicious, thoughtfully-planned meals with dignity. For Dunewood, feeding seniors is personal after losing both his grandparents in the past two years.
"It kind of makes me care even that much more because I want to make sure they're getting healthy food. They're getting the right food. They're getting stuff that's going to be good for them," said Dunewood.
That often means low-sodium, low-carb food, still packed with flavor and comfort. Batista and Dunewood said it feels good to give back, but they're nowhere near done.
While they continue expanding their for-profit business, they want to expand their reach in the community as well.
"Our goal here at Ghost Unit Kitchen is just to continue to feed, to continue to put out food and continue to grow in any way possible," said Dunewood.
"To me, we haven't accomplished enough yet," said Batista. "We gotta keep this going and as a for-profit company, I still want to make sure we still focus on giving back to others."
Taking care of our community's most vulnerable - that's why the two chefs of the Ghost Unit Kitchen are our Vegas Stronger Champions.
