Kitchen upgrades at the Westbrook Community Center have made a difference for students, Director Greg Post said, and may bring more culinary-based classes and events to the facility.

The $11,000 project included the purchase of stovetops, air filtration systems, charbroilers, refrigerators, microwave ovens and coffee pots, along with upgrades made to the oven and dishwasher.

The kitchen is used by hundreds of people a week, ranging from Woodfords Family Services adults with disabilities to community cooking clubs and students in the high school’s COMPASS alternative learning program. It also hosts meals for seniors and pre-game meals for the high football team for their families.

New and bigger classes can be added, Post said, and with the better dishwasher, no one will have to use plastic utensils and paper plates.

“I love the new kitchen and appliances, it is much more professional,” Christina Wotton, a member of the Woodfords program, told the American Journal recently while preparing potatoes for an African stew.

Wotton and her classmates said because the new equipment is better, their recipes turn out better.

“The old kitchen was OK, but this is a big upgrade and feels like a chef’s kitchen,” James Libby said.

The Westbrook Food Pantry, located at the Community Center, covered $5,000 of the project’s costs. Pantry President Nancy Crump said the kitchen is helping to address food insecurity, and providing cooking and meal preparation classes will be beneficial for the pantry.

“It will certainly indirectly benefit the food pantry, allowing cooking classes,” Crump said. “It will allow extended use of the kitchen facilities and … even the potential for those larger fundraising meals.”

Post said he is on board with making more use of the kitchen for additional cooking classes and demonstrations.

“There is a lot of potential here even with folks in the community center, and we can certainly look to even bring in some local chefs,” Post said.

The Community Center on average sees upwards of 500-700 people a day, Post said, and the kitchen could eventually rival the pool in terms of the popularity and amount of programming, he said, as “not everyone wants to take a dip or use the gym.”

“It’s a way to create some real skills while also allowing a lot of creativity,” he said.