This is how Don Eli, director of food sourcing, describes the program:
The Culinary Job Training Program (CJTP) is an eleven-week culinary program taught by a professional chef, a job placement counselor, and a case manager. The program includes teaching ServSafe® Certification on a manager’s level. ServSafe is a nationally recognized safety and sanitation certification. The JTP teaches knife skills, equipment identification and use, stocks (white and brown), sauces (veloute, béchamel, espagnole, demi-glace, tomato) soups, baking (quick breads, yeast breads, cookies, cakes, and cake decorating), salads (egg, chicken, pasta), cooking techniques (braise, roast, pan-fry, poach, sauté, steam, stir-fry), standard breading procedure, culinary terminology, egg basics (hollandaise, omelettes, quiche, soufflés, crème brulee) and basic nutrition. The program teaches life skills, employment skills, and stress management, and includes a sexual harassment seminar.
HISTORY OF THE CJTP -- In 1998, we launched our culinary job-training program in the afternoon hours at Shepherd’s Table Soup Kitchen. We needed to offer cooked food to our agencies that could not utilize the perishable raw products we recovered. At the same time, we wanted to offer people in the soup lines and shelters we served an opportunity to break the cycles of poverty they were experiencing. The goal of the program is to help students obtain meaningful employment in a food service position with a living wage, and thus become self-sufficient, productive members of society.
FOOD SOURCES AND MEAL RECIPIENTS -- Our training kitchen has access to 40,000+ pounds of food from a wide variety of donors weekly. Students learn to convert this food into hundreds of nutritious, well-balanced meals, which are then delivered to local soup kitchens and kid's programs. This donation helps these small non-profits target their limited funds for services rather than food.
