The Good News Community Kitchen began as a ministry of the Good News Community Church (UCC) in 1983 and began serving meals a few days per week in the "North of Howard" neighborhood of Rogers Park, on the furthest northern border of Chicago. Today, with the help of more than 30 partnering congregations and community organizations, GNCK is the highest capacity community Kitchen in the metropolitan Chicago area and we are the only community kitchen that serves a hot nutritious meal 365 days per year. Last year, more than 2,500 volunteers worked with our staff to serve 56,000 hot meals to an average of 120 patrons per night. However, we are more than just a "soup kitchen." Together with community residents and our congregational partners, our patrons are engaged in advocacy to address the core issues that contribute to hunger and poverty. GNCK created Northside POWER (People Organized to Work, Educate and Restore) and the Northshore Caucus to work on making neighborhood streets safer, to improve community health care, and develop local pre-apprenticeship job training which will help patrons and area residents get access to living wage construction jobs.

However, just serving meals to the hungry is simply not enough if we want to tackle the roots of the problems faced by the poor. To build a just society we must become more than just a soup kitchen so we can address systemic hunger and poverty issues. Together with kitchen patrons, community residents and our congregational partners we have created Northside P.O.W.E.R (People Organized to Work, Educate and Restore) and the exciting new Northshore Caucus to organize and advocate for systemic change. Together, NsP and the NsC are working to make the streets of Rogers Park safer, and to increase access to quality health care and job training and living wage jobs for kitchen patrons and local residents.

In 2002, GNCK was the recipient of the Greater Chicago Food Depository’s prestigious Fr. Phillip Marquard Award and was named the Most Innovative Agency of 2005 for our creative community work in service to those in need while simultaneously fighting systemic hunger and poverty.