by Lisa Reisman
Over the last 22 years, a 2004 Honda Element SUV has industriously pulled the CitySeed farmers market trailer around the city, transported market gear, and delivered Sanctuary Kitchen meals to farmers markets near and far. Recently, with a doubling of monthly catering orders, it’s been showing its age.
“A lot of times when we want to cater food for customers, the battery’s dead, and we all have to use our own cars to get everything there,” said Aminah Alsaleh, culinary manager at Sanctuary Kitchen, among a group of 35 in the maintenance bay at Grieco Ford of Branford on Tuesday morning.
The occasion was the unveiling of a spiffy new delivery vehicle for Sanctuary Kitchen, a program that creates pathways to economic empowerment for immigrant and refugee chefs through culinary training and professional development. It supports its aspiring chefs through a full-service catering program, as well as take-home meals available for pickup at farmers markets operated by CitySeed.
In addition to Sanctuary Kitchen, CitySeed, a New Haven nonprofit, operates the city’s farmers markets, as well as a food business incubator that connects rising food entrepreneurs with farmers toward building successful and viable food businesses.
CitySeed Executive Director Sarah Miller, who is also the alder for Fair Haven’s Ward 14, discussed the range of cuisines offered by Sanctuary Kitchen. “We provide Syrian, Lebanese, Afghani, Iraqi, and Senegalese, you name it, and we deliver it all over the state,” she said.
Rawaa Ghazi, Sanctuary Kitchen Operations Director and graduate of the first training cohort, addressing group.
The purchase of the 2025 Ford Transit Cargo Van comes as a result of a CitySeed-initiated campaign which saw over 220 donors chipping in during last year’s Great Give, and completed with a generous gift from LindyLee Gold’s Amour Proper Fund, according to a CitySeed press release.
“I’m thoroughly convinced that education, training, opportunity, and access are keys to changing not only the participants in the various programs of CitySeed, but their future generations as well,” Gold said. Remember the farmers, she added. “They grow the food that we prepare.”
Sasha Fay, CitySeed food business incubator manager, sounded a similar refrain. “The vehicle gives us access to further grow Sanctuary Kitchen and further support economic opportunity for immigrant women as we’ll be able to access more organizations in more locations,” she said.
Chef Joe Berg, who has Sanctuary Kitchen trainees assisting him at his Mercy by the Sea kitchen in Madison, highlighted the significance of the organization at its most basic level: sustenance both for the Sanctuary Kitchen customers and its participants’ families. “I’ve been in this business for a long, long time and what I know is that regardless of social or economic stratum, everyone has to eat at least once a day,” he said.
For Oluwabasyo Caroline Agidigbi, who came from Nigeria with her family in 2022, there was excitement. A culinary trainee who graduated in the program’s fifth cohort in 2025, Agidigbi now works as a part-time chef at Sanctuary Kitchen, cooking Nigerian dishes like fufu, a side dish made of boiled yams and plantains pounded into a doughy ball, and akara, made from black-eyed peas mixed with onions, peppers, and spices, and fried into golden-brown, crispy fritters.
The new vehicle “will help me bring my country’s cuisine to more people,” she said, beaming.
New mobile billboard for Sanctuary Kitchen.