Following a 35-year career as executive chef at five-star luxury hotels in Southern California, Bill Bracken found his true calling in 2013 when he launched Bracken’s Kitchen through his mobile food truck called Betsy. He developed partnerships with some of the country’s top food vendors and joined forces with food recovery organizations in the fight to redirect perfectly good food, before going to trash bins, to his commercial kitchen with hundreds of volunteers in Garden Grove. More than 30,000 nutritious, wholesome, hearty meals are served per month. He does so with partnerships with Chefs to End Hunger and Solutions for Urban Agriculture. And, Roosters Foundation of Orange County’s Adopt-a-Kitchen event brings its members to Bracken’s Kitchen to prepare 1,000 meals for Veteran Outreach and children’s organizations. Bracken also trains young chefs through his Culinary Training Program. His mission: Through food recovery, culinary training and a community feeding program, he is committed to recovering, re-purposing and restoring both food and lives.
“Before we can give refuge to the poor, educate our young, heal our sick or offer hope to the afflicted, we must be able to feed them.” – Bill’s favorite quote