St. James Waimea breaks ground on Gathering Place, first public kitchen in South Kohala

St. James in Waimea is turning a weekly meal line into South Kohala’s first public certified kitchen, with The Gathering Place moving from fundraising into construction after pulling in $6,365,000 from 431 donors, plus state and county support.

The project will convert the church’s open-air pavilion into a large meeting and dining hall with glass doors opening to the lawn, a full commercial kitchen, bathrooms and storage for the Waimea Community Meal. Tim Bostock, chair of The Gathering Place Committee, has described it as a shared resource for the congregation and the wider community, and the scale of the effort sets it apart from a typical church improvement project.

For South Kohala, the kitchen is also an economic tool. A certified public kitchen can give local caterers, home-based food businesses, community meal organizers and event planners a place to prepare food legally and at scale, without having to build their own facility. In a district that includes Kawaihae, Puakō, Waikoloa and Waimea, that kind of space can lower the barrier to entry for small food entrepreneurs and give nonprofits a dependable site for classes, gatherings and emergency meal service.

The need is already clear in the size of St. James’ meal ministry. Over time, reports have put the Waimea Community Meal at more than 350 people a week, then 700, and as high as 800 people a week. In one 2025 report, about half of the diners were kūpuna. The program has long relied on donations of food and money from Waimea-area businesses, farms and other organizations, and the church’s limited kitchen and storage space has become a practical bottleneck.

The Gathering Place has also been part of Waimea’s civic conversation, including a town meeting in September 2024. A recent project update said the kitchen design team is choosing appliances now so electrical load requirements can be set before photovoltaic system engineering goes out for bids. That technical work shows the project is well past the concept stage.

For St. James, the groundbreaking marks more than a building project. It is the start of a new community asset that could strengthen local food production, expand service to kūpuna and families, and give South Kohala a place built for both daily nourishment and long-term resilience.