NEWS

 

Early Monday morning, the Ada Jenkins Center staff and a large group of supporters met for a ribbon cutting ceremony to unveil their newly renovated commercial kitchen and event/meeting space that was re-created from the former school’s cafeteria.

Ada Jenkins Center’s Chief Executive Officer Harold Rice addressed the crowd and thanked the staff, the Ada Jenkins Board members, builders, designers, community leaders, and funders who made the modern, stylish, and impressive new space possible. He explained that the newly renovated commercial kitchen and event space is designed to serve multiple functions. It will serve as a location for cooking demonstrations and classes for all ages. It will also be made available for community entrepreneurs to utilize and as a rental space for events, thus serving as a revenue generator for Ada Jenkins. The facility will also be used to prepare and serve meals for events held on-site at Ada Jenkins and in the community.

“We are excited about this space and about all of the innovative things we can do with this new facility,” said Rice. He thanked the organizations and corporations that invested in the newly renovated space, including Town of Davidson, Mecklenburg County, Alliance Health, the Cannon Foundation, Novant Health, and Trane Technologies.

Davidson community leader Ruby Houston also shared words of celebration and praise for the new initiative. As a former student of the Ada Jenkins School, Houston recounted the history of the school and of its founder, Ada Jenkins, and recalled the many dedicated teachers and administrators who educated and nurtured the children of this community.

“We stand on the shoulders of giants that labored many years ago to create this space as a school and now a vibrant Community Center,” said Houston. Houston added that the Ada Jenkins Center will be bustling all summer. The Brenda H. Tapia CDF Freedom Schools classes began on Monday, Camp LEARN Works begins in July, open gym hours are ongoing all summer, community line dancing classes are held on Thursday nights, and the Fourth Annual Juneteenth celebration is on Saturday, June 15.

After a large group of supporters gathered to cut the ribbon, the guests were invited inside to view the new kitchen and event space.

The renovation project was undertaken by Enbloc Construction company, a veteran-owned construction company located in Charlotte.  Enbloc Construction founders Bob Fullwood and Wyatt Starnes are no strangers to the Ada Jenkins Center. “This project is a continuation of a long-standing relationship with Ada Jenkins,” explained Starnes. The relationship started when Enbloc Construction led the extensive Ada Jenkins gym renovations in 2022, in collaboration with Stephen Curry’s Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation.

“We couldn’t be prouder to be involved with this project and to have a chance to work with the Ada Jenkins team again,” said Fullwood. When they were working on the Ada Jenkins gym, Fullwood and Starnes had an opportunity to tour the unused kitchen and cafeteria space and immediately began to brainstorm ideas. Enbloc began the commercial kitchen and event space renovation project in November 2023, completing the final touches just in time for the ribbon cutting and upcoming Juneteenth celebration.

“We wanted to honor the sense of history in the building, and so we tried to either save, or adapt and reuse, as many of the original features as we could, while breathing new life into the building,” said Fullwood.

One of the standout features of the new space is a stylish, graphic mural that adorns the far wall of the kitchen. The mural can be seen from all angles of the space. RBA Group in Charlotte took on the design job in collaboration with Ada Jenkins and Enbloc. Three enthusiastic representatives from RBA Group were in the crowd to celebrate the opening.

“We are so excited about how the whole project came out, and we had a wonderful time collaborating with the Ada Jenkins team and Enbloc Construction on the design,” said designer Caroline Hollins. “Our design concept was one of community, of togetherness. The focal point of the space is the colorful mural in the kitchen. This building, and this space, has been here for 100 years, and so while we wanted something that felt modern and fresh, we enjoyed adding in some retro designs as well,” said Hollins.

Heidi Acker is busy leading tours through the kitchen, the pantry, and the refrigerated and dry storage areas. Acker is the Healthy Initiatives and Food Pantry Coordinator at Ada Jenkins; the newly designed kitchen is her brainchild. Acker has an extensive culinary background, graduating from the second class of the Charlotte campus of Johnson & Wales in 2006 and moving into corporate quality assurance and product development before turning to non-profit. She explained that her primary focus right now is to use the kitchen and community meeting space to expand opportunities for hands-on cooking classes, and to provide demonstrations of cooking techniques for larger groups of people.

“Over the years working in the culinary field, I have developed a strong interest in the health aspects of food and cooking,” said Acker. The classes I have been teaching recently have been for people over 60 with health conditions, and we focus on talking through how to improve dietary choices and better eating just a little bit every day,” said Acker. Down the road, she envisions cooking classes for parents and children, and classes just for kids.

The kitchen is a place for community. Acker says that classes often divide up the courses and components of a complete meal, with individuals or pairs preparing one part of the meal. At the end, everyone gets to share what they have prepared. “The most fun thing about a cooking class is that everyone gets to sit down and eat what they have made.”

Although the pristine, gleaming kitchen had not been used yet for any food preparation, Acker shared that the first meal would be prepared in the new kitchen “later today” and would be a “lemony cous-cous salad.”

In addition to Monday’s ribbon cutting event, Ada Jenkins is excited to reveal the new space to the entire community during their Annual Juneteenth Celebration, Saturday, June 15 from 4:00-7:00 p.m.

See our album of photos and a video at this link.