Reality Kitchen, struggling through pandemic, seeks way around nonprofit exclusion for federal restaurant relief

A local nonprofit organization providing food industry work experience to young adults with intellectual disabilities is on the brink after the pandemic, and now federal funding Reality Kitchen was counting on to usher in a rebound is unavailable because of its nonprofit status.

"We may have to close," said Reality Kitchen Executive Director Jim Evangelista.

More than 30 people with intellectual and developmental disabilities over the past eight years have passed through Reality Kitchen on their way to becoming self-sufficient, working adults, Evangalista said. They learned to bake, to prepare meals and how to conduct retail and social skills to keep them working beyond their time at the nonprofit.

"I bake pastries, cakes, occasionally cookies," said Jesse Egil, who's worked at Reality Kitchen for the past several years. "The community still needs this place because there are a lot of people with learning or developmental disabilities that don't really have a lot of job skills leaving high school or have a lot of opportunities. This gives them a chance to learn some of those skills so that they can help out in other parts of the community."

The COVID-19 pandemic was difficult for Reality Kitchen in all the ways it was for the wider food service industry. Reality Kitchen, with 21 full- and part-time staff members, is a bakery, a restaurant, a wholesaler and more, and in normal time those operations pay their bills.

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During the lean times of the past year, community donations, adjustments to business strategies and federal Paycheck Protection Program dollars kept Reality Kitchen afloat, Evangalista said. But he expected new federal funding being ushered through the U.S. Small Business Administration to sustain the Reality Kitchen mission at a critical time.

"We're just putting things into place that have taken this whole year to develop," he said. "That's why right now we were knitting together our resources and rebuilding our income so that we're self-sustaining and not depending on funding coming in from outside."

The SBA is awarding money from the nearly $29 billion American Rescue Plan Act to bars and restaurants through its Restaurant Revitalization Program. The funding supports businesses that lost revenue because of the pandemic.

Qualified businesses include restaurants, bars, bakeries and other businesses primarily serving food. Reality Kitchen meets most of the criteria, except nonprofits do not qualify.

"To get us over the hump and into a better place, we were looking to those SBA funds," Evangalista said. "On all the eligibility fronts, we're qualified. But they have blanketly excluded nonprofit organizations. It's understandable that some of those would be excluded, but so few 501(c)(3)s run a food service business and do the work we do."

The SBA funding can provide between $1,000 and $10 million to eligible businesses, depending on the size of revenue losses and past federal support received during the pandemic, according to the SBA's Restaurant Revitalization Funding Program guide.

Evangalista has asked members of Oregon's congressional delegation to ask the SBA to reconsider exclusion of certain nonprofits from the restaurant revitalization program.

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"We're walking on a razor's edge every day," Evangalista said.

Beth Schoenbach, a spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, said the congressman spearheaded a letter to the SBA asking that the funding criteria for nonprofits be revaluated. Schoenbach said U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who wrote the restaurant relief portion of the American Rescue Plan; U.S. Rep Suzanne Marie Bonamici; and U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden joined in signing the letter.

Evangalista said without mediators to the SBA, the future of Reality Kitchen is in doubt.

"We need the extra help and clarification to the SBA to hopefully allow us the opportunity to apply for and receive the funds based solely on the qualifications," Evangalista said. "We don't want anything more or less than anybody else. We just believe we deserve the right to to apply and be evaluated based on our finances, our work and our need."

Contact reporter Adam Duvernay at aduvernay@registerguard.com. Follow on Twitter @DuvernayOR.

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Reality Kitchen, struggling through pandemic, seeks way around nonprofit exclusion for federal restaurant relief

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