 and welcome to this episode of Fort Worth, Ford. I'm here at the Culinary School of Fort Worth where I will be joined by President Scott Wade as well as guest Natalie Stalmock from Casa of Tarrant County and Kim Sisson of Collections Fine Jewelry. Let's go. And now I'm here with Scott Wade who's president of the Culinary School in Fort Worth. Welcome Scott. Thank you Michael. I've been a lot of people actually don't know that a culinary school exists here in Fort Worth. So tell us a little bit about how it got started and then how you came to be a part of the Culinary School. Sure, yeah. And that statement makes me sad. We hear it a lot that we're the best kept secret in town and we're trying to get the word out more. But so how I got involved, it started with a conversation with Bill Byrd who was a previous owner, Bill and Judy started the school way back in 1988. And I believe it started as cooking classes in Judy's home. And over the years, they advanced it, turned it into a career in vocational school. But anyways, Bill and I had lunch one day and really I just wanted to sit down with him to pick his brain about being an entrepreneur and what that's like, what it's like being a business owner. And that conversation led to him saying, you know, he was later in his career and wanting someone to take over the school. And so one thing led to another in that same year and we ended up buying the school from him. And what year was that? It was 2014. 2014. I mean, a lot of people probably don't know that I actually attended back in 2014, I think right when you took over ownership and it was just down the street. Correct. Yeah, so was that the, what was the address down there? That was 6100 Camp Bowie, so we were above Lamadolin. That's right, and that's where it started and where it was when Judy and Bill had it. Correct. And then you moved to this new location, what's the address here? 6550 Camp Bowie. Camp Bowie, so when did you move here to this location? 2016. 2016. So this is fine because we've got all the students behind us, we have all this that's working so people can see it's a culinary school. So tell us a little bit about, what's an average day like for your students here? Sure, yeah, so these students are all part of our nine month professional culinary program. And classes are five days a week, five hours a day. So they're here either from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 4 to 9 p.m. Okay. And we're big on. Is that so, I mean, kind of staggered so they can have other jobs and do other things? Correct, yeah, so honestly the morning class is our most popular time slot. Okay. But that evening class is for a lot of people that are working at 8 to 5 or, you know, 7 to 4 job and they come right after work and come to that class. What is the sort of composition of a student? Are people that have typical, as you said, 8 to 5 jobs so they might be an office job? Sure. Do they do this at night? And are there other people, I guess, that maybe have restaurant jobs? So they do, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, so a lot of students are working in the industry, either part-time or full-time, and then they're coming here. But really we have three categories of students. We have our students that are straight off high school, maybe they did culinary in high school. Okay. They're 17, 18 years old. Then we have our people that have some experience in the industry, whether that's one to two years and we've had some of 15 years of experience. But they want to come and get that formal training. And then we have our career changers, people that have been in the military or been in the business world but love culinary and they decide to make that switch and pursue this as a career. And that, so that's, in that question, is what are they walking away when they're done with the program, what are they walking away with? What kind of degree, certification? Sure, yeah. So our school's a accredited, post-secondary career and vocational school so they get a certificate from us. They also get two industry certifications. One is a surf safe manager certification. They have to pass that exam but that's part of the program. And then our program is accredited by the American Culinary Federation. And so they get a certification from them as well. So a lot of them will maybe take this and go into a culinary field with the technical degree. Is that, yeah. Right, right, exactly. With the technical certification and yeah, our hope and desire is that they go into the industry because they also get two months of on-the-job training as part of the program. So they're called externship. Where we place them in the last two months in a restaurant or hotel, maybe a food truck. And we customize that to what they wanna do after school. To what do we do? Is that part of the nine month or is it nine plus? So it's seven months in hands on, a career and then two months hands on in an environment. Correct, yeah. Seven months here, two months with one of our externship partners. And we vet those partners. We have 50 or so relationships. With chefs in the community. That's great. I mean, are there different tracks that you can take as part of the degree? No, so this is one track. It's our professional culinary program. Now we do have some other offerings. One is a apprenticeship program. That's where we partner directly with the employer. And so Fort Worth Club is one of our partners. That's a two year long apprenticeship. And then Fort Works is another program where we partner with the food bank and taste project. And it's a 16 week training. It's free to the student and they get paid for working during that time as well. That's great. That's great. And they're doing all the training here or they're doing training. For that one, they do it at the food bank and then at taste project. Okay. And this is a topic today. I'm sure you produce a lot of food here. What happens with this food afterwards? Sure. Yeah, so students get to eat it. They can't eat it. They get to eat it. I ate a lot back in the day. Yes, yeah. So often after the hands on piece, they'll go and sit in the classroom and enjoy what they've made. Also, they'll get to take home a lot of food to their family. And then we donate the food scraps. So, you know, for vegetables and fruit scraps, donate that to the Terran area food bank. There's a garden nearby and they use that to make compost. Compost and then put it out in the garden. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. What, you know, outside taking the formal program or their events or other things that happen here where people can come, our viewers can come and be a part of this. Sure. Yeah, definitely the Forward Food and Wine Festival. We're gonna have a booth at the Rise and Shine event. I believe that's Saturday, April 1st. So our instructors and students will be there. So people can support that. Also, the first Friday is at the Modern Art Museum. We have several alumni and current students that work at the Cafe Modern. Okay. And often Chef Jet over there will let our students run with a menu on those first Fridays. So definitely go check out Cafe Modern as well. Sounds fun. You hosting anything here, anything here too? Not currently. In the past we've done some, what we call culinary studio classes for the public. So we're not doing that yet this year, but maybe people can keep an eye on our website for event classes that we may do here. That's great, that's great. Well, Scott, thanks for being here today. Really appreciate you and what you're bringing to the Fort Worth community. We talked about this in a lot of different ways that we need to get our students educated and maybe it's a technical or a vocational skill and this serves that purpose and puts them on a career path to success. So thanks for what you're doing. Great, thank you. Thanks for having me. Thank you. And now I'm joined by Natalie Stalmock who's with Casa of Tarrant County. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Of course, thanks for being here. Tell people what Casa is. So Casa stands for court-appointed special advocates and those advocates are volunteers from the community who sign up to advocate for children and foster care right here in our community in Fort Worth and in Tarrant County. Okay, so they work with kids and work with judges in the court system. Absolutely. Explain a little bit about that, yeah. So when you are a volunteer and you're assigned a case, there could be one child, there could be a sibling group, but your role is to help that case move through the court system a little bit easier. You make recommendations to the judge on what's in the best interest of the children, visit them at their foster home or relatives' home at school, advocate for them at school, just be an extra set of eyes and ears for the judge so that they have the most information possible to make the most informed decision possible for what's best for these children. For these children, so they're in foster care or maybe they've been removed out of difficult situations of living with family members or something. So, the idea is y'all really work with that child and understand their needs and then advocate for them with the judge and in the court system. Right, there's so many moving pieces for kids when they're in foster care. They have a case worker, they have an attorney, they may be in foster care living with a relative, then they may switch if they're in foster homes, they may switch foster homes, which means another family and another school. So, there's so much constant change going on for children that have already endured trauma before they even came into foster care. And so, we try to stabilize that for them, find some normalcy, find soccer, enroll them in something to have that other experience that other kids, a normal life, we don't think a kid in foster care should have a different life than any other child. Well, that leads me to, this costs his 40th year in operation. What success stories do you have from those 40 years? So, our big focus right now is getting kids back with their families, back with their parents, and if that's not possible with their relatives. And we've put a huge focus on that, particularly in the last decade. And just those stories that come out of finding relatives, getting kids back with their parents and parents being able to go to parenting classes, get a stable job, get better housing, get their kids back and move on with their lives. And if that's not possible, finding relatives and really having volunteers sort of dig into that and be kind of researchers and, you know, find a grandma in another state or an aunt, uncle. We had a sister that was 21 and took her brother that was a teenager in foster care. And they were so lovely to meet with. You could see that bond and being the oldest, you know, of a sibling group myself, just knowing what that would feel like. Keeping the family together, making people that way. To keep the family together, it is so important. And that's our goal. And those are my favorite success stories is when kids are able to be with their parents and with their family. And yeah, and so that is, as you pointed out, a goal is to find someone maybe that's still a blood relative that wouldn't want to take them versus going into a foster care system that, okay, that's wonderful. How, just for our viewers, how pervasive is abuse neglect in Tarrant County? So Tarrant County is growing and that's a great thing. But with that comes some problems. So Tarrant County. Big city problems. I tell people that all the time that we're a big city growing, big county growing, with that comes big city urban problems. So we have the third highest number of confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect in the state behind Dallas and Harris County. And that was 5,506 confirmed cases. Even bigger than Travis and Barron, yeah. Wow, okay. So, and it's all, it's Fort Worth. Mostly Fort Worth is the biggest city, but it's all across the county. And it's, we tell people it's in every socioeconomic, every neighborhood, people have problems. There's substance abuse, mental health issues. And so when you can help families stabilize those problems, you can help reunite the family. Yeah, that's- It is quite a big problem here in Tarrant County. Yeah, and I think you alluded to it. There are other social ills that are probably causing some of these issues. Yeah, it's never one thing. It's a combination of a lot of things. And that's what we saw in COVID that the numbers went up, but there was just so much additional strain on things that were already there. Right. How did that, I think through a lot of times, it's reported through the school. Right. And kids weren't physically in school. Did you see a drop-off in numbers and then exponentially go up after COVID? Yes. And how did y'all handle that as an organization? So we had, the community really stepped up in a big way for us during 2020 especially. And there were reports in the news about some severe cases that were at Cook Children's and then concern that because children were not in school that they were not seeing some problems, teachers were maybe missing out on some things that they normally would have seen. And that coverage helped us recruit a lot of new volunteers to make sure that we had those eyes and ears on kids that we thought were in vulnerable situations. That's wonderful. This being the 40th year, y'all undertaking some big projects to help- We're doing some big marketing things this year to have more community awareness, have people know what cost it is, what we do in the community and the importance of what we do. Another initiative that we've seen that's really important, we've started a black hair care initiative. So helping foster children with textured hair learn how to do their hair, teaching foster families what they need, getting products donated for them. There's so many things you don't think about when you're in foster care and when you are removed from your family, you're removed from your culture too. And so- Something that I think people think about for sure. It's not something that people think about, but it includes your culture, it can be language, so we need more people of color, Spanish speaking volunteers because that's another thing that makes kids feel isolated is to be removed from that. Yeah, we'll talk about that. What do you need? It sounds like volunteers and elaborate on that, yeah. So volunteers, you just have to- Tell me about how you, what's the training program and how you get through this, how you get to be able to get through it. So you just get started by attending an info session, an information session, and right now those are online, so you can go to our website. What's that website? It's speakupforachild.org. Okay, okay. And you can do, click on the volunteer page and see what dates that we have those information sessions. And that will start your journey, we'll tell you what's needed, what the volunteer expectations are, and then it's 30 hours of training that's spread over an entire month. Okay. You're sworn in by a judge, so you're very official. And what does the training consist of? Is it classroom? Is it, what does it look like? It's classroom and we're back in person, so you get to meet other people in your class and it's, we don't expect our volunteers to know anything about social work, anything about foster care, you don't have to be an attorney, so we're gonna teach you those things. Okay. So what does the volunteer system looks like? What to expect? We have a whole night explaining trauma and how that affects children so that you can understand that and then if the people involved in the case, if teachers, foster parents, don't really understand the behaviors or things that are happening with children to say, hey, I learned about this in my training, here's some resources that might be helpful and you can connect them with that. So we'll give you all the tools you need to be successful to do this work. That's great. You mentioned also you're sworn in by a judge, an official. And how does that work out as a ceremony? It gives me chills every time for all these people to stand up and raise their right hand and basically just say, I promise to be here for these children to advocate for their best interests. It makes everybody stand up a little straighter and know that they're doing something really important and that judges in Tarrant County recognize this is important and they wanna hear from our volunteers when they're in their courtroom. That's wonderful. With that, what message would you like to send to people just about the organization and just about the organization? CASA is such a wonderful organization that impacts so many people can affect generations, can break cycles of abuse and trauma and foster care and child abuse is hard. It's an issue that not everybody talks about and so we wanna bring that kind of darkness into the light and say, yes, there are issues, but we're an organization that helps. Kids move past that trauma and into a healthier, more stable place. We were founded in Fort Worth by the Junior League of Fort Worth and Federation of Jewish Women. So we're just, we're thankful that we were started here and thankful for all the donors and volunteers that have supported us the last 40 years and look forward to continuing, they're still in need. And so we're ready to try to meet that challenge. Well, wonderful. Thank you so much for what you do and my, as a father of adopted twins, often know how important it is and the resources that we need to give to these children. So they didn't pick the situations that they're in so we have to do what we can to protect them. So I'm thankful for you and organization like CASA making sure that happens. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here today. Thanks for your time. And now I'm joined by Kim Sisson who is president of Collections Find Jory. How are you doing, Kim? Good morning, I'm doing good. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, out of full disclosure, we have to tell people that we've been friends for, I'm not gonna tell your age. No. A long time. A long time. Back to, wayside middle school up North. So, and so I've been proud to know you for this long and see the business grow and that your mom and step dad started and see it sort of just take off. And so, tell us a little bit about how you decided as a career you wanted to go into the jewelry business. Yeah, so, you know, as you know, my mom started the business when we were just toddlers. Yes. Yes. Yeah, a long time ago. A long time ago. In 1983, actually. And as the story goes, she actually, she sold her first, made her first sale while she was sitting on the floor waiting for them to come and set the phones up. Okay. So, you know, kind of this funny story of how everything came into it. And so, my sister and I always grew up in the business. I remember when we were younger, holidays are always the busiest time of the year. And so, we would go after school. We would go late into the night during the holidays and our job was to either talk to the jewelers to keep them awake while they were working like, or to deliver coffee. So, we grew up there. And it wasn't always expected that we would come back to it. But, after I graduated from tech and then went on and was at TCU, I would come back to help my mom do different projects. Little things that, you know, a small business doesn't always have. Systems development and processes and things like that. And after I graduated from TCU, she said, hey, you're still in the middle of these projects. Do you think you could stick around and just help me out for a little bit longer? And I said, sure. And that was a couple of decades ago. Still working on it. She sort of lured you into it. She sure did. Yeah, she sure did. Well, for a lot of people that don't know exactly where you're located, tell us a little bit about the area and let's, you know, the old OP store that was next door hotel. That was my first job, the OP prep store, which was fantastic. I mean, Saginaw, let's think back in the 1980s, and I was actually thinking about this the other day. In the 1980s, I think the census reported about 6,000 people living in Saginaw. This little sleeper bedroom community where people lived there but commuted. I think the 2019 census has us at about 25, 26,000 people, which is still kind of small, but considering how fast that growth has been, you know, you've gone from having little bitty OP prep shop to now having this large community that's growing. So it's been sweet to see that it still maintains that kind of cute, close community-esque feel. However, the high school that we grew up, we used to jokingly say on all four sides was nothing but fields and cows. That's right. Yeah. And today it's nothing but- The school next to the cow. Boswell High School for everybody watching us. Right, the school next to the cows. And now it's nothing but residential around there. So it's developed nicely. It's developed and a lot, which is great for your business as part of that. So you said 83, it's 40 years. It'll be 40 years this June. So tell us about the changes of a business over 40 years building this small business and selling on the floor, writing for the phones to what you're doing now and all the parts of it. So it's not just the jewelry business. You also have CFG manufacturing. Talk about that a little bit. You are right. So everything always grew very organically. And you know, and being here in Fort Worth with all of the great commercial businesses that we have, what started as clients would come in for jewelry would then come in and say, you know what, at our company, we do these lapel pins. Right, like this. And they're, yes, like Molly. This is where we get the Molly pins, everybody, so, yes. And so people would come in and they'd say, can you do that? Can you do a sales incentive? Can we do a ring? Can we do a gift with a clock or a watch or crystal bowl? And that very organically grew into employee rewards and recognition. So now you're opening that up to corporations. That then grew up into, hey, collections, we trust you to put our logo and our brand on this clock. This watch, this whatever. Can we then do it on a pen, a pencil, a hat, a cap? And that turned into promotional and brand merchandise. Naturally, that then turned into our most latest growing sector, which is corporate uniforms, corporate and industrial uniforms. So we've got roughly from the corporate space. I didn't know that, you're doing it, yeah. Yeah, from the corporate space, we now have clients in about 160 countries. Wow. And that's been a lot of fun to see that natural growth. To see it just grow as a part of it. I'm telling you, it's been, you just, you keep your nose down and you just keep working. And a lot of people ask, how does that work? And you kinda, you can appreciate this. You've gotta work your business, like you don't have a backup plan. That's right. When you own it. Because when you own it, you've gotta work it like you don't have a backup plan. And when you do that, then you're all in. Right, right. And you've got nowhere to go but positive. Well, and speaking of that, you're now on the radar with Jewel Charity Ball this year as the exclusive jeweler for Jewel Charity. Tell us about that process and how that works. And congratulations. That's a big deal for people that hear that know. But yeah, tell us a little bit about that. I think that's probably one of the highest honors that we've received within the Fort Worth community is being asked to be the signature jeweler for Jewel Charity. We've gotten a chance to participate and to assist and to donate over the course of our 39 plus years. But this year is really something kinda special. We've got some amazing clients who are also members of Jewel Charity. And so when they made the decision this year, we'd like a local jeweler. And then they recommended us out of all the amazing local jewelers in Fort Worth, our name came to the table. It was an amazing honor. We're looking forward to it. That's great. Well, it's always a fun time and all the sparkly things that are out there. All the sparkly things. I cannot afford for Joanna. But you know what, that's the great thing. We have always prided ourselves, Michael, on making exquisite jewelry that everyone can afford. It is true. It is true. And my ring was made there. Wedding ring. Wedding ring was made there. So lots of great memories I know for a lot of people. And tell us what's the best part about working with your clients? You know, I feel like jewelry evokes a memory, right? You look at a piece and you're like, ah, this was my grandmother's ring. The ring that you did for Joanna, like it shares a memory. It invokes a memory and emotion. And because of that, there's such a great people side to jewelry and a story side. And I think just getting the opportunity to be involved in that is heartwarming. I had a friend of ours who we both went to high school with who came in and he said, it's my wife and I's 25th anniversary. And I was like, I was so touched. So honestly touched that he would say, I'd like for you to help me with that. So what really is cool right now though. That might be a hint to Joanna. We've got a 25 coming up in a couple of years. And she just had a birthday. She may not stick with me for another couple of years. That's all I know. Oh, I wouldn't doubt that. Okay, so what's really cool is clients that started with us, like with my mom in the early 80s, we've now seen their children come in and we're now starting to see their third generation of children come in. And how awesome is that? It is. To be a part of three generations of Fort Worth families that we get to share in these experiences and these memories. Yeah, that's awesome. One of the things I've focused on a lot as with the city council that my tenure is helping small businesses. And really looking at how we make the processes better for them, make it smoother. What advice would you give to someone that has a small business, running a small business and wants to start a small business, all those things. What would you add, give us some tips? I think the first one, like I mentioned earlier, is you've got to run it like you don't have a plan B. And for a lot of people who start a small business, they don't have a plan B. So you've got that going for you. So my mom has always said failure's not an option. And for her, she was a newly single mom with a couple of kids. When she started the business, failure wasn't an option. So I think when you run it like you don't have a backup plan, you get it ingrained in your head that I've got to do the right thing for the customer. I've got to do the right thing for the employees. And if you take care of that piece of it, then the store will take care of you. The other thing to that is I feel like you've got to run your business like a good marriage, like a good relationship. There are going to be days where it's hard and you've got to just grind it out and work through it. And there are days where it's going to be easy. And on those days, you're still going to grind it out and work through it. That is true. But at the end of the day, if you're providing the right product and you're doing it from an altruistic perspective, like my mom never wanted to overcharge people when it came to jewelry. She always wanted it to be reasonable. She wanted people in our community to be able to enjoy a nice jewelry that they can wear every day for a reasonable price. And so I think when you get into it for the right reason like that, it'll always take care of you. That's wonderful, wonderful. Thank you for being here today. Thanks for what you're doing and really appreciate our something, something plus years of friendship that I want. That nobody needs to know the number. But thank you again for being here. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for inviting me. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Fort Worth Forward here at the Culinary School of Fort Worth. Scott, Natalie, and Kim were great guests and doing some great things here in Fort Worth. And one of the great things about being at the Culinary School is that they made this great cake for me to eat. So I am going to dig into it and we'll see you at the next episode. Thank you.