Tammy Johnson, executive director of Life’s Kitchen, doesn’t like the term “at risk.”
“When you think of saying, oh, hey, you're at risk, so you need help, that says, well, maybe I'm not worth it. But when you say you're an opportunity youth, you have opportunities in front of you. You just need help getting a hand up and understanding what those opportunities are.”
In the early 2000s, Boise restaurateur Rory Farrow noticed skill gaps in the young people she was hiring.
“They needed more than just how to cut and a job and money. A lot of them were coming out with no high school diploma, and many of them had no support,” said Johnson.
Support with things like how to write a resume, financial budgeting, or networking.
“So what Life's Kitchen's program does is bring them into the fold and works with them every single day on the support. On working in a kitchen. On being able to get a job. We provide the GED if they don't have their high school diploma.”
“I dropped out of high school because it just wasn't suiting my needs,” said Jack Hranac, who’s been with the program for two and a half months. “I've been learning a lot, just getting my hands into the pie, so to speak.”
In 2003, Farrow opened Life’s Kitchen. More than two decades and 600,000 hours of job training later, 950 young adults have graduated the program.
Executive Director Johnson said the program’s purpose is to help the students become successful and independent.
“The whole goal from point one to the end is so they can start earning money as well as build relationships. So it's trying to make this person feel whole again and realize that they can do it versus they can't.”
She said it costs $12,000 to put one trainee through the program, and about half of the funds are sourced from donations.
“It is so much fun to watch these young adults grow and then realize their worth. And when we have granters like Jacques Pépin that supports that and believes in that. It just helps us know that we're doing the right thing in the community.”
Jacques Pépin is a renowned French chef. His foundation supports culinary education for those with barriers to success. The Jacques Pépin Foundation recently donated $10,000 to support Life’s Kitchen.
Students aged 16 to 24 train over the course of four months, eight hours a day, five days a week. Liliana Luna heard about the program from a counselor.
“I like to be in the kitchen. I like baking, I like cooking, I like watching cooking shows,” she said. Luna’s dream is to become a personal chef.
“I want to work for a really amazing restaurant, do collabs with other famous chefs and bakers and things. So this is just a place to be at for that.”
Darrion Ontiveros is an alum of the program and now works as a chef instructor for Life’s Kitchen. His favorite part is “teaching them all the different skills they can use so they’re never left in the dust.”
For Nicki Jo Johnson, the cafe manager, the best part of her job is: “the kids. 100% the kids. They’re such little gremlins in all the best ways. And it's so cool to watch them become themselves and really grow into who they are and understand what they want out of life and go into it confidently.”
Joe Crespi is the executive chef at Life’s Kitchen. He said he’s inspired to come to work every day by the growth he sees in the young adults in the program.
“I say it in the meetings every morning. It's watching a miracle happen with the kids. They come in here kind of lost and broken, and then when they see their own worth, and then you see the confidence they get out of it. And then when they graduate, it's like they're a brand new human leaving this program.”
Life’s Kitchen says it provides a thousand meals a week to a local homeless shelter, and since opening has made more than 1.4 million meals for the community.
