2025 Reflections
Season’s greetings and warm holiday wishes to you and yours!
As we reflect upon our first full year as Caring Community Cuisine, we share and celebrate our successes since Nov 2024 with you.
Chef Selena Roy preparing for holiday festivities
Events:
At 2 Pier Rd, we hosted over 42 community-funded events this year! We offered 18 sold-out gourmet meals in our Dinner with a Purpose series. We held 5 cooking classes, featuring ingredient health benefits, preparation, recipes, and highlighting ingredients from oysters to chocolate and ramps to rhubarb. We offered several stand-alone classes: the beauty of well-mixed drink, tea-making, and gardening. We held our 1st annual Galentine’s Day, celebrating friendship and community, and our 1st annual Community Cookie Decorating party. We also hosted over 15 private events - supporting our mission while celebrating and enjoying the café space.
Dec 2025 Dinner with a Purpose sponsored by Compliments Gallery
Funding:
We had additional community support through the first annual Cindy’s Challenge ride/run/walk fundraising event in Aug 2025. It was founded by William Weidner in honor of his wife and local luminary, Cindy, who lived with pancreatic cancer for two and a half years. Both Jonathan and Selena rose and are already training for 2026. Through this event, almost $24,000 was raised for CCC to provide meals to families impacted by cancer! Over the course of the year, we also raised almost $110,000 through café sales and generous donations on site as well as through the website!
Aug 2025 1st annual Cindy’s Challenge event
Impact:
Through these community events, fundraising, and donations, we supported over 20 different families with meals! They all approached their cancer journeys in unique ways and we were happy to accommodate. Dietary requests were unique; some meals were holistic, organic, bone broths, and even breakfast for dinner. Recipes and nutritional guidance from our friends at the Dempsey Center allowed us to cater to specific dietary needs depending on medication, food allergies, and preferences. We served over 2,100 meals in alignment with our mission. And a common statement of why we do what we do, “We cannot cure cancer, but we can cook!”
Sample meal delivery for families impacted by cancer
Our meal service alleviates one area of stress that cancer brings.This allows our cancer “warriors” to focus on becoming well and spending time with those around them. Some families happily left our program with remissions and celebrations. Unfortunately, others lost their battle. Regardless, CCC was there to comfort and provide care to members of the family as they healed. We feel we provide not only nutritional care, but also compassion and common ground.
Our giving tree
Support:
There are so many amazing people associated with the success of CCC. Volunteers support website maintenance, donation tracking, kitchen help, bussing tables, as well as delivering meals to warriors. Staff treat every customer with a smile and ensure they leave with positivity and a sense of worth. Board members ensure we stay true to our mission and have the ideas/capacity to do so. Family and friends pitch in and contribute whenever needed, as they know that some days it will be heavy. And we recognized our sponsors large and small - Kennebunk Savings Bank, Hannafords, Nappi Distributors, Baldor Foods, The Nonantum Resort, Kennebunk Captains Collection, Your Maine Concierge, Compliments Gallery, Bradbury Brothers Meat Market, Schlegel Realty, Mainely Bicycle, Kennebunk Outfitters, Maine Coast Roast, Dempsey Gardens, West Kennebunk Community Garden, and Mobile Musette.
Happy holidays from Caring Community Cuisine
As we wrap up our first year at Caring Community Cuisine, we reflect upon this amazing community. We are able to provide our services because of your continued support. We are in awe of what we’ve accomplished together and look forward to making an even greater impact in the coming year. Wishing you a wonder-filled holiday season and looking forward to seeing you in 2026!