Brandon Ellis is the man behind Chatter Box Cafe. If you’ve never eaten his BBQ, you need to. Thanks to a partnership with Bringing Vision Into Focus, and our $3,000 grant, two high school students will enter Culinary Academy. What does that mean? The Culinary Academy program will provide participants fundamental food service prep skills through on the job training consisting of 3 progressive levels. At the end of this 3 month course, at risk working age teens will be better equipped to enter the workforce in food prep/service industry. The purpose is to develop more productive citizens by creating critical and practical thinkers while providing an employment opportunity.
Our $3,000 will be used to provide ServSafe certification curriculum testing and facilitation, wages for the two youth (80 hours paid internships 10 hours a week for 8 weeks) and to cover kitchen supplies and equipment necessary to to train participants in a commercial kitchen.
This programming will reach teens that are at a crossroad in life. These teens could go down the road of destruction, however with guidance, responsibility, accountability and documented progress through food service training and a paid internship, they will be guided in the right direction. Ultimately Chattanooga will benefit from this incubator through more engaged at risk youth and more entry level food service workers. This program will also help local Chattanooga businesses cut entry level training costs. #winning