Community Kitchen holds 40th Graduation Ceremony

On Tuesday afternoon the Community Kitchen held a ceremony for their 11 graduates of the 18 week culinary training program run by Chef Floyd.   This is the first graduating class that had the opportunity to work and train in the brand new community kitchen on-site at the food bank, and chef tells us that operations have improved immensely since moving into that space, thus making their task of producing 2,500-4,000 meals per day for the Kids Cafes a little easier.

Board Member and public figure, Jamie Deen, spoke to the graduates about the importance of "doing this for yourself" and shared stories from his childhood and how he got to where he is today.  

"I've learned everything just like y'all are- one day at a time, step by step, day by day."

Jamie also spoke about the importance of being involved in the community.  This is something that his mother always instilled in him which he truly embodies in his own life, and something that the 11 graduates know a lot about as well.  Every day, they are the ones preparing the meals for the Kids Cafe sites while at the same time, learning kitchen and food handling safety, ensuring ServSafe practices, and making sure the children they feed have healthy and delicious meals every day.

Chef Floyd & Brittany Johnson

Instructor Iris Holmes-McGraw and Marvin Ellis

Jamie congratulates a grad

After the presentation of the certificates, the students had the opportunity to reflect on what the program meant to them- emotions we shared freely amongst the family and everyone enjoyed a meal prepared by the graduates afterwards.