Meghan Markle and Prince Harry announced on Sunday that they secured the first charity partnership for their new foundation, Archewell, and will work with the World Central Kitchen.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex agreed to a charitable collaboration with celebrity chef José Andrés. Together, their charities will activate a series of service kitchens in areas prone to natural disasters or health crises.
In an email statement sent to the press, Meghan and Harry said that they chose to partner with Chef Andrés and his World Central Kitchen team because of their work after the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The Sussexes said that the staff of the food charity worked tirelessly to provide for a community.
From its initial partnership, Archewell and the World Central Kitchen will build four Community Relief Centers in the coming year. They've chosen the Dominican island and Puerto Rico as the first two sites, while two more locations will be named in 2021.
But Meghan and Harry will not stop with just four centers. The Sussex pair is still planning to "engage additional partners" as they envision more Archewell Community Relief Centers across the world. Bloomberg estimated that the cost of investing in these kitchen centers will be at least $50,000 each.
Food shortage is a pressing global problem affecting 690 million people, according to the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization. The U.N. expects this number will rise to 132 million due to the COVID-19 crisis.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex announced their new foundation after leaving their roles as working royals early this year. By October, as their website went live, an insider told Entertainment Tonight that the couple has been quietly operating their organization despite the impact of the pandemic, which prevented them from having an actual launch party for Archewell.
Prior to announcing the kitchen centers, Meghan and Harry volunteered at non-profit facilities with feeding programs around Los Angeles at the height of the lockdown in April and June. The couple delivered food for the vulnerable sector on behalf of Project Angel Food. They also volunteered at Homeboy Industries, a social justice community kitchen that prepares meals for families with no food security.
Before leaving their royal roles, Meghan took part in the feeding program of Hubb Community Kitchen in the U.K. Harry, on the other hand, was part of Team Rubicon in 2015, which conducted relief efforts after an earthquake in Nepal.
