Family Kitchen, a free community meal program that serves Bend, Sisters and Redmond, announced on Monday that the nonprofit will transition into a standalone organization after Trinity Episcopal Church said it could no longer provide support due to Family Kitchen’s rapid expansion.

Family Kitchen originated from the ministry of the Trinity Episcopal Church in 1985, when a small group of women began sharing meals with families of mill workers following the closure of the mill. Nearly four decades after its founding, Family Kitchen now hosts daily lunches in downtown Bend and distributes 14,000 meals each month to various shelters, camps and low-income families, according to its website.

It was Family Kitchen’s growth, said David Childers, a member of the parish, that caused a financial burden for the church.

While Family Kitchen leases the kitchen space from the church and operates with its own board of trustees, the church provides administrative support, handling tasks such as human resources, hiring and accounting.

“We started with small beginnings, but we have seen the need grow and Family Kitchen has been able to step up. And that’s been a wonderful thing,” said Donna Burklo, Family Kitchen’s executive director. “And we’ve been so well supported by Trinity in doing that for all of these years.”

Childers emphasized that there was never any conflict between the two entities, rather that Family Kitchen grew to a size in which it could sustain itself independently and the church could no longer absorb the rising administrative costs of Family Kitchen.

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The transition out of Trinity Episcopal Church is not immediate, according to Burklo, and Family Kitchen is in the beginning of planning stages for building a larger facility, which Burklo hopes will be operational sometime next year.

In the meantime, Burklo doesn’t believe that Family Kitchen’s capacity to provide meals to community members will be negatively impacted during the transition. However, once the partnership with Trinity Episcopal Church formally ends, Family Kitchen will face significantly higher overhead and operational costs.

“It’s been a privilege to be in this relationship because it has kept our operating costs dramatically lower than they would be,” Burklo said. Market rent “will be a lot higher than what we’ve had. So yes, our operating costs are gonna go up tremendously.”

Burklo hopes the new facility will be large enough to accommodate other organizations, like those providing housing and job assistance, or substance use treatment opportunities. These organizations would be able to offer their services alongside Family Kitchen to community members.

“We’re not going to limit our service at all,” Burklo said. “Whatever it is that we do, we are not going to miss a meal, so that our diners don’t have to worry.”