Guest Chef Branden, from St. Luke’s Health System in Nampa, taught Life’s Kitchen trainees how to make chicken marsala. Life’s Kitchen has guest chefs every Monday; they are from local businesses and restaurants and volunteer to teach Life’s Kitchen trainees a culinary class. (Photo provided by Life’s Kitchen)
By Steve Bertel
Proverbs 24:5 remind us: “A wise man is strong. And a man of knowledge strengthens his power …”
Young people today face a plethora of challenges: they may have a dysfunctional family life, they may have dropped out of school, they may be homeless or unemployed, they may be abuse victims, or they may even have a criminal record.
Life becomes even more difficult as they transition into the workforce. They may know what they want to do career-wise but, given their baggage, they find it an uphill battle – if not seemingly impossible – to achieve their goals and dreams.
That’s where Life’s Kitchen helps out.
Boise restaurateur Rory Farrow wanted to do more than just serve delicious meals to her customers. She had it in her heart to help at-risk teens and young adults who, because of their backgrounds, were facing arduous tasks of adjusting to society. According to the Life’s Kitchen website, “Rory saw hundreds of Boise teenagers enter her restaurants as employees without the basic life skills necessary to become successful young adults. She found herself not only teaching them how to read a recipe and properly handle a knife, but also helping them find their first apartment, learn how to manage a budget, and develop other important skills required for economic independence.”
Rory heard about a program in Seattle that did just that – a program called Catalyst Kitchens. So, after meeting with its executive director and doing her own research and preparation, she opened Life’s Kitchen in Boise in 2003, modeled after the Seattle program.
“We are a social enterprise,” says Life’s Kitchen Executive Director Tammy Johnson. “Which means we are supported not only by private and public donations, but also through our businesses.”
The nonprofit agency is a unique three-in-one program: it’s a public restaurant (named Rory’s Café, in honor of its founder, and open Monday-Friday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.), a professional catering service, and an educational center where young people learn both job skills – mainly in food preparation — and various valuable life skills. “About 53% of our funding comes from our businesses — the restaurant and catering service,” Tammy points out. “The remainder comes through donations, grants, and corporate sponsorships.”
Some may remember that Life’s Kitchen was originally located on Capitol Boulevard in downtown Boise. “It was an old hotel on property owned by the City,” says Tammy. But, when city leaders announced plans to demolish the building as part of an urban improvement project, Life’s Kitchen needed to find a new home. “The city was very helpful and very kind in helping us relocate,” she remembers.
Today, Life’s Kitchen operates out of the former Marie Callender’s restaurant at 8574 W. Fairview Ave. in Boise, a restaurant the Life’s Kitchen folks renovated to fit their needs. “The move allowed us to really expand,” Tammy points out. “At the downtown location, we could only have five to seven young people per class. At our current and much larger location, we can have up to fifteen per class. Plus, the larger facility helped us to increase our real-world work experience and life skills training programs.”
Since its inception, Life’s Kitchen has provided some 600,000 hours of job-skill training to more than 950 young adults, and has provided more than 1.4 million meals to school-aged children, those participating in recovery programs, and community members in need. Or, as Tammy explains, “We have contracts to provide meals to children in the Boise School District, to two charter schools – Sage and Riverstone International Schools – as well as to Lifeways Psychiatric Hospital and The Allumbaugh House drug rehab center. Plus, we provide 1,000 full hot meals each week to Interfaith Sanctuary in Boise to help feed the homeless community.”
So, between providing meals for its restaurant, catering service, and community members, “We produce a ton of food every day! In fact, we produce about 4,000 meals per week, including to schools and needy people. So it’s a bit daunting,” she chuckles.
The sixteen-week training program consists of four four-week modules, … “each building upon the previous one,” Tammy says. During the first month, students are taught the basics: safe food handling, sanitation, knife cutting techniques, and basic culinary theory. They also learn how to produce meals for the charitable organizations the Kitchen has partnered with.
Phase 2 consists of life skills classes to help students become more confident and self-sufficient, including financial literacy, healthy relationship skills, tenant rights and responsibilities, and effective resume writing. They’re also given additional training in high-quality food service.
The following month, trainees get hands-on experience in the restaurant by working both behind-the-scenes as line cooks in the kitchen, under the tutorage of the agency’s executive chef – and “out front” as servers, waiting on and interacting with paying customers, all while being mentored by the Kitchen’s café manager. Also, under guidance of the executive chef and chef instructors, students continue to produce meals for schools and community service agencies.
Then, in Phase 4, students participate in internships/job shadows at local restaurants or food service facilities, based on their employment goals and interests.
New classes start the second Wednesday of each month.
“We have about an 80% immediate job placement rate, which means our students – who range in age from 16 to 24 – find employment in their fields of interest about two weeks after they graduate,” Tammy points out. “Overall, we’re proud to say we have about a 90 to 95% job placement rate.”
Although many graduates find jobs in the local restaurant industry, some have utilized the skills they learned at Life’s Kitchen to land work in other fields. Plus, the nonprofit has a partnership with the Idaho Department of Labor whereupon, if a student qualifies, he or she can work at Life’s Kitchen and continue working toward their GED, while being paid.
For students who earlier dropped out of school – “65 to 70% of the young people who enter our program do not have their high school diplomas,” Tammy adds – Life’s Kitchen also offers a full GED program; a math tutor comes in twice a week and, through a partnership with the College of Western Idaho, students can study additional subjects like science and math.
When students successfully complete the sixteen-week program and receive their graduation certificates, they are not simply pushed out of the nest and forced to fly on their own; Life’s Kitchen has a support plan in place to help students who may encounter unexpected obstacles along their path, who may have lost their jobs or perhaps are even facing eviction, and need help getting back on their feet. Plus, graduates often return to Life’s Kitchen to help mentor and advise current students, or to simply hang out with fellow graduates who have become their close friends.
The organization’s motto is “Serving Second Chances.” “That was part of Rory’s model when she began the program,” Tammy says. “Because it’s really all about giving these kids a second chance. When many come into the program, they’re pretty broken. So we tell them, ‘Your choices do not make you who you are. It’s how you move forward and try to make better choices.’”
Tammy also feels Proverbs 24:5 best epitomizes the mission and work of Life’s Kitchen, in that, “We equip these young people with the skills they’ll need to give them the mental strength – the power – to become confident, productive, and successful in the real world.”
Steve Bertel is a multi-award-winning professional radio, television, print media, and social media journalist, who retired after a 30-year broadcasting career. Now a busy freelance writer, he recently released his debut suspense novel, “Dolphins of an Unjust Sea”, available on both Amazon and Kindle. Steve and his wife of 42 years live in Meridian, Idaho. He can be reached at [email protected].
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