March 12, 2003—The Greenwich, CT chapter of the American Red Cross has unveiled the Spirit of America, a 53-foot mobile kitchen designed to produce 30,000 hot meals daily within heavily impacted disaster areas.
The Greenwich Chapter donated the mobile unit to the American Red Cross National Headquarters, to be used in disaster operations across the United States.
Using Henrys Kitchen, a mobile feeding unit capable of producing 10,000 meals a day, as a model, the Greenwich chapter, working in part with American Red Cross National Headquarters, began fundraising events shortly after the terrorist attacks that would enable them to meet their goal.
The Spirit of America is a fully self-contained trailer, which can operate next to a standing building, in a parking lot or vacant lot and in open fields. Meals prepared in the mobile kitchen can then be loaded onto emergency response vehicles (ERVs) to be distributed to disaster victims throughout the disaster area. When a disaster has affected a wide geographical area, additional meals can be prepared at other locations by smaller field kitchens that are already a part of the American Red Cross disaster response system.
The Spirit can function in a stand-alone mode, or it can be connected to working community water and electrical systems. It contains potable water and wastewater disposal tanks, four propane tanks and a 65 KW silent running generator. The kitchen facilities include 3 tilt skillets, 2 stacked convection ovens, a roll-in-rack oven, an industrial size mixer, hot water on demand system, 5 stainless steel sinks and a walk-in refrigerator. The unit also carries a pressure washer, gas leak detector, a fire suppression system, electric lift, a winterization package and heating and air conditioning systems.
