Spectrum News NY1: Once Homeless and Incarcerated, Now Stars in the Kitchen
- November 23, 2020
- •Jobs
NEW YORK – Jared Thomas of the Bronx says his life wasn’t going in the right direction after graduating from community college and he struggled to stay out of trouble.
“I didn’t want to keep on making the same mistakes, being around the same people and I wanted a job,” said Thomas, who is now a Chef for City Beet Kitchens.
“It’s a three month training and three month internship,” said Project Renewal Executive Chef Anthony O’Connor, who added that they like to hire graduates of the program at City Beets Kitchens because they know exactly what we are getting in terms of a candidate’s skills and attitude.
City Beet Kitchens employs chefs with histories of homelessness, substance abuse disorder, unemployment or incarceration. Among them is Yaya Springer of Brooklyn, another program graduate and a mother of two boys.
“I needed to break the cycle of people in the family going back and forth to jail, so I’m breaking the cycle and I’m showing them that hard work does pay off,” said Springer, who also runs her own catering business on weekends. Read the full story.
