Culinary Program Trains Formerly Homeless For Kitchen Work

EAST VILLAGE, NY — It was standing room only at a graduation for a culinary program aimed at helping formerly homeless and low-income adults get jobs in the food industry.

Some 80 graduates, current students and friends and family gathered to celebrate the honorees leaving Project Renewal's Culinary Arts Training Program — all with smiles and many carrying their small children to the podium to pick up their diploma.

For one graduate, the culinary program was more than hopefully a pathway to a stable job.

"Just the way that I learned and seeing the process was more than enough for me to know that this is not just a program I want to be in, but this is the career that I want to advance," said Juan Berrios, 30, of Williamsburg.

Berrios had previously worked as a line cook at Checker's — but wanted to learn more complex cooking skills.

"This is my passion," said Berrios, who had been living in a halfway house prior to joining the program.

Now, Berrios is working at Cookshop — a popular brunch spot in Chelsea.

One day he hopes to launch his own restaurant using skills gained in the kitchen at a men's shelter on East Third Street, where instructors teach the program.

"I want to learn how to cook great meals for people and have them love it," said Berrios.

Berrios is one of more than 1,300 people in the past 23 years that has gotten a job through the Culinary Arts Training Program at Project Renewal, which runs classes out of kitchens in the East Village and Long Island City for those who are formerly homeless or have faced another hardship.

One chef instructor, John DeSimone, listed hundreds, sometimes thousands, of jobs available throughout the boroughs in various food industry jobs that have hit job sites within the past few weeks.

"The jobs are out there," DeSimone told the recent grads at the ceremony in late August. "They need people and now you guys are trained."

Project Renewal enrolls about 160 people each year.

About 80 percent who graduate are placed in a job, Barbara Hughes, the director of food services at Project Renewal, said. About 50 percent who enroll end up finishing, though Hughes said key factors in graduation rates include students having trouble securing childcare, paying for transportation and going through the program without getting paid during three months of classes.

The program is free for students or subsidized through various programs — but getting the cash to supply students with a MetroCard would make a difference, she said.

"There are people in New York City who could write a check like that and not miss it in a second," said Hughes, estimating about $50,000 would do the trick to pay for transportation for students.

"The biggest [challenge] no doubt is keeping it funded," she added.

State Senator Brian Kavanagh says New York should fund programs that replicate Project Renewal's job training model.

"I do think that the state ought to look at programs like this as a model," said Kavanagh, who had his first swearing in ceremony as an assemblyman catered by Project Renewal's City Beet Kitchens. "I think state agencies should be looking at this."

"Its success speak for itself," he said.

Those interested in Project Renewal's Culinary Arts Training Program can call 212-473-1140 EXT 223.