Mornings at DC Central Kitchen (DCCK) start at 6:00 AM—making the coffee, tea and sandwiches served to homeless people who live on the streets of the District of Columbia. The men and women who prepare the food and drive the vans and serve people are participants in DCCK’s 12-week Culinary Job Training Program. At the end of the program, they hope to land a job in the restaurant industry. Some may soon be working under the sous chef of one of the city’s finest restaurants. For now, they are distributing morning sandwiches to homeless people and enjoying the opportunity to do so. More than a few have been homeless themselves.
One of the trainees is named Michael. Forty-three years old, he has spent more years of his life than he wants to recall on drugs. He has been to prison twice on drug offenses. He’s drug-free now and praises DCCK’s job training program for helping him to turn his life around. Michael has a wife and an adult son, and he breaks into a smile as he talks about gaining the rest of his life back, and the chance to make up for the times things went wrong while he was younger and less mature.
In addition to learning the skills of the culinary trade, the trainees meet daily for self-empowerment sessions. These are private sessions led by a professional facilitator. Confidentiality is essential because the emotions expressed in the meetings are cathartic and raw.
Each person accepted into the training program has been drug-free for at least 120 days—and there are other rules. Trainees must show up on time for class every day. They have to wear the DCCK uniform. They have to submit to random drug testing; anyone who fails is expelled. The intent here is less punitive and more to set high standards and encourage good behavior. Each graduate represents the program, and the self-discipline expected of them is why this program has been successful for more than 20 years. DCCK invests almost $9,000 to train each person, and there are several applicants vying for each of the 25 coveted spots in each class.
Of those who graduate from the training program, 90 percent are placed in jobs right away, with a starting salary averaging $11.50 per hour. In 2008, in spite of the recession, two-thirds of the graduates were still employed a year later.
In 2008, DCCK served 1.75 million meals. Most of the food is donated from farms, restaurants, hotels, and other food-service sites. Meals are provided daily to more than a hundred social service agencies that feed homeless people, ex-offenders, and disadvantaged youth. The money these agencies save by not having to provide their own meals allows them to invest in services to help their clients. DCCK also feeds children in federally funded after-school programs and through the Summer Food Service Program.
DCCK was built on the ethic that nothing has to be wasted. Neither food, nor people. Using hundreds of thousands of tons of donated food each year, DCCK is part of the community food security quilt that covers one of the poorest cities in the nation. Just as important, it recycles lives by offering people opportunities, often people who had been written off by others.
DCCK is about the healing powers of food in body and soul. People who were formerly hungry are taking care of those who are presently hungry. It isn’t hard to pick up on the satisfaction they feel doing for others as others have done for them. “The Kitchen succeeds,” says Robert Egger, founder and president of DCCK, “because the people we help now understand they are needed.”
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