Bus 52 Presents: Life's Kitchen

http://bus52.com/profiles/lifes-kitchen/

In Boise, Idaho, young adults who have dropped out of high school have the chance to get their lives back on track in an unusual way: by learning how to work in a commercial kitchen.

Life's Kitchen was the brain child of Rory Farrow, a restauranteur in Boise. "She was finding that her entry level employees weren't performing to the level of her expectations so Rory took the time to go back into the kitchen, roll up her sleeves and teach these young people how to be good employees under her guide," explains the Executive Director of Life's Kitchen, Kurt Alderman.

As she got to know these young employees, she also saw that they were often struggling to live on their own, unsure of how to spend their money wisely and pay their taxes.

"So, she started to spend that time teaching them how to live outside of her kitchen and she decided that maybe there's a way that we can help a group of young people in the Valley to live on their own."

The idea grew from that first spark in the mid-nineties to become Life's Kitchen, which was founded in 2003 and now helps around 55 to 60 young adults a year in the Boise area, at no or little charge to the students.

Alderman explains that they're "working with 16 to 20 year olds who have found themselves out of school and are unable to live on their own. And we're teaching this kids how to get jobs in the food-service industry but we're really teaching kids how to live on their own."

For some, the idea of kitchen skills might not go hand-in-hand with life skills, however, Life's Kitchen hits the balance perfectly. The kitchen side provides the students with an intensive initiation into the world of the food-service industry and teaches them everything they need to know to be able to continue in a job.

Read more... http://bus52.com/profiles/lifes-kitchen/

To learn more about Life's Kitchen and to see the café opening hours, please visit their website (http://www.lifeskitchen.org/), Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lifes-...), or Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/LifesKitchen).

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  Nonprofits & Activism