The Northfield Senior Center has obtained a grant for $18,675 to expand its kitchen.

Presently the kitchen is compltely inadequate for the over 10,000 meals that are prepared annually, said Barbara Brayton, director of the center.

The grant will not pay for the entire renovation that we need to do, she said, but will help to jumpstart a capital campaign that we intend to launch soon.

She said that it will cost about $50,000 to make the improvements that they need including making the kitchen big enough for a crew to do prep work and serve meals at the same time.

Right now, if we have a large group, we have to use my office to get desserts ready, she said.

The crew comes into work early in the morning to start getting ready to deliver over 40 Meals on Wheels which are delivered by local volunteers all around the town, then they have to get ready for lunch which is served at Noon. Usually, there are about 25 for lunch, she said.

At present, the kitchen only has a household dishwasher but needs a small commercial one. Also, the freezer is out in the dining room because there just isn’t any room in the kitchen to keepit there.

The sinks are not really adequate either for washing commercial pots and pans as they are regular household sinks. They should be larger and deeper, she said.

Our plan is to expand the kitchen by moving one wall out into the present dining room a few feet which will greatly improve the work space and allow more people to work in the kitchen at the same time and would also allow both main course and desserts to be prepared at the same time.

The grant was part of a grant of $487,000 in federal funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to be administered by the Vermont Association of Area Agencies on Aging.

The grants were made to improve kitchens in senior centers and for Meals on Wheels programs throughout the state.

The grant received for the Northfield Senior Center was the maximum amount that could be obtained under this grant program that went to 34 senior centers throughout the state.

Senator Bernie Sanders, I, Vermont, said “this money will go for a myriad of purposes, depending upon the needs of the center. It will, among other things, purchase new kitchen equipment, repair roves, buy a new dishwasher, install a new furnace, repair an elevator, make centers more energy efficient and improve service for the Meals on Wheels and Congregate Meals programs.”