Christ Kitchen was started by Jan Martinez to help counter the myriad of social, financial, and interpersonal needs she saw among the women she worked with at Christ Clinic, a non-profit medical clinic for the working poor. The desire to help in practical ways developed into a job-training and work program called Christ Kitchen. The project employs low-income women from backgrounds of abuse, addiction and poverty and offers a nurturing, healthy, caring environment in which they learn work skills, life skills, and meet relational needs.

Christ Kitchen began in 1998 with two patients from Christ Clinic who packaged bean soup and cornbread with Jan in the fellowship hall across from the Clinic. We made $15,000 that year selling at craft shows, mission fairs, and church services. Today, we produce 35 gourmet dried mixes, gift baskets, and catered meals. As our employees became more stable and efficient, and as sales increase, we enlarged our workforce to an average of 35 women per year. In keeping with our goal to encourage and support self-sufficiency, we have developed three managerial positions in which employees demonstrating competence and leadership are learning to take over administrative functions of the business.

In 2008, our tenth year in business, gross profits from sales equaled $161,095, an increase of forty percent from the previous year. On average, wholesale and retail sales provide about sixty-seven percent of its operating budget. Unsolicited donations supply thirty-three percent of the budget. Wages consist of seventy-six percent of total expenses.

Perhaps more notable than its business success, however, is the impact Christ Kitchen makes on the lives of homeless and low-income women in the Spokane region. Throughout the past 10 years, hundreds of women struggling with issues of employment, relationships, health, addiction, and abuse have found not only employment, but also a fellowship of believers within which they can grow in faith, stability, and self-worth. Our motto reads: a community of women becoming self-sufficient and Christ-dependent.