| Ingredients
for
Life
Culinary program
offers homeless in
Seattle a new start
The training never stops at FareStart, a unique
restaurant in the heart of downtown Seattle.
“Where’s table No. 1?” an instructor asks two
servers-in-training dressed in neat black slacks
and black shirts. The servers point, and the instructor
continues. “Try to make eye contact and smile as customers
come in,” she says. “Remember, you set the mood in the
dining room.” The servers nod as the doors open for the
weekday lunch crowd.
Since 1992, FareStart has been the turning point for
thousands of souls once living on the brink. “Eighty-five percent of our graduates are employed in 30 days or less,” says
Lillian Sherman Hochstein, development director and 1991
alumna of Seattle Pacific University. “Eighty percent of these
graduates are still working at the same job a year later.”
Founded as Common Meals by Seattle chef David Lee, the
organization first provided meals for area shelters. Soon, though,
its reach broadened to teach culinary skills to the very people it
had set out to feed. To date, more than 1,250 individuals — many
of them once homeless — have graduated from its extensive
16-week training program. About 2,500 meals are served daily
through FareStart’s restaurant, café, catering business, and contract
services that deliver to shelters, schools, and day care centers.
Originally employed by Food Lifeline, a supplier to area food
banks, Hochstein had met FareStart staff members and regularly
ate in its Second Avenue restaurant. Impressed with the
organization, she became an unofficial cheerleader, spreading the
word about the program wherever she could. As FareStart
expanded, its infrastructure also needed to grow, and, in 1999,
Hochstein was hired as its first development director. “It’s one
thing to give someone a sack of food and another to teach them
how to be employable and self-sufficient,” she says.
" I came up against some adversity,” explains Daniel “Buck”
James about a road rage incident that went too far. “I
started doing some time in county jails and prison. When
I got out, I took a step back and decided that instead of
taking the left-hand fork, I’ll go right this time.” While working
in the kitchen of an adult rehab center, he learned about Fare-
Start and applied to the program.
Men and women who can show they have no income and
have been sober for 30 days are eligible to apply. Cost to students
is free, and in addition to comprehensive food-service training,
students are provided a safe bed at night, transportation to and
from work, and life-skills classes such as communication, teamwork,
and setting and achieving goals. The kitchen courses cover
everything from food preparation to menu planning and personal
hygiene. During the first two weeks, everyone learns the
same basic skills; then students can choose if they prefer to work
in the dining room or the kitchen. “It’s like choosing your major,”
explains Hochstein.
James worked in the kitchen, preparing the hot dishes served
in the restaurant. One assignment — to create the next day’s restaurant
special — allowed him to showcase a creative flare only
hinted at by his tattoos and red-haired soul patch. That night,
James planned the entrée: a crab and avocado omelet with home
fries, and toast with orange-clover honey. It sold out.
With the real-world experience they gain, students like James
have gone on to work at Seattle-area eateries such as Salty’s,
The Metropolitan Grill, Dahlia Lounge, and SPU’s Gwinn
Commons. “I’ve been hearing a lot out there that if FareStart
says, ‘Take a look at this person,’ they do,” says James.
As students, James and others work with chef instructors
in a modest-sized commercial kitchen, separated
into two areas, one for the restaurant and one
for contract services. “It’s a challenge,” says Dan
Escobar, a 2004 Seattle Pacific graduate and chef instructor. “I’m
not only responsible for getting meals out, but I have to make it
educational. It’s tremendously rewarding to be a part of that.”
While a business major at SPU, Escobar also worked in
restaurants, including Seattle’s popular Ray’s Boathouse. In his
junior year, he received an assignment to participate in a group
project for a business or organization, so he contacted FareStart.
Outgrowing its facilities, the organization
had begun a capital campaign to raise
funds for a new building. Escobar’s team
coordinated an open house for donors.
A year later, he worked with SPU’s
Career Development Center to find a
business-related internship in the restaurant
industry. He called Hochstein, who
proposed an opportunity that was just
right for him.
FareStart had taken aim at helping
disadvantaged youth ages 14–21, many
of whom, as runaways, end up on Seattle’s
streets with little hope or prospects.
A barista training program was being
created in partnership with local agency
Youth Care, and two FareStart cafés —
one in the new Seattle Public Library and
one in an office building — would provide
on-the-job training. “I wrote the proposals
and arranged for the permits for
the coffee cart in the library,” says Escobar.
With his internship fulfilled, Escobar
completed his Seattle Pacific studies and
graduated. He continued working at Ray’s
Boathouse and volunteering at FareStart.
When a position as chef instructor at
FareStart opened up, he didn’t think twice.
Now teaching in the part of the kitchen
dedicated to fulfilling the services contracted
to shelters, day care centers, and
other nonprofits, Escobar and his student
crew prepare dinner for nearly 600 people
a day. After the meals are loaded into a
white van, he delivers them to six local
homeless shelters.
Although FareStart provides tasty, nutritious nosh for
thousands of people every day, much of its visibility
comes from Thursday’s Guest Chef Night. Top
Northwest chefs from renowned restaurants such as
Canlis, Assaggio, La Spiga, and the Seattle Yacht Club work sideby-
side with students nearing graduation. Together, they produce
a mouth-watering meal for the make-sure-to-get-reservations
event. “There are some chefs who drop everything to do this,” says
Hochstein. Each Thursday’s wait staff is composed of volunteers
from local companies and organizations. To date, the evenings
have raised more than $1 million for the program.
With more than 40 percent of its $3 million annual operating
budget coming from its food services, FareStart successes have
attracted increasing attention from other cities. “I’ve led tours
for people from all over the country and all over the world —
including Russia, Japan, and Germany,” says Hochstein. When
the Russians came, she adds, laughing, they couldn’t believe the
program wasn’t government-run.
Two years ago, Boise, Idaho, became the first to replicate the
FareStart model; it now has a student-operated store that sells 10,000 cookies a month. Programs similar to FareStart will
begin soon in Tacoma, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and
Amarillo, Texas.
Built on a myriad of successes, FareStart has outgrown its
Second Avenue facility and will move into a 6,000-square-foot
facility on the corner of Westlake and Seventh avenues next year. “We’ll have two separate kitchens — one for the restaurant and
catering, and one for the contracts,” says Escobar. Adds Hochstein:
“Our goal is to have a better teaching experience. We can
double the number of students and double the business.” With
97 percent of its goal raised, FareStart’s current $8 million fundraising
campaign is poised to make that happen.
Seattle Pacific senior Rachel Loucks-Emens discovered
FareStart while on Urban Plunge, the University-sponsored
program that gives students a personal experience
of homelessness. A communication and political science
major, Loucks-Emens and others in her group visited the restaurant
while living on the streets. “This was the highlight of my
Urban Plunge week,” she remembers. “It was like a divine
appointment for me that I came here.”
She later contacted Hochstein to ask if she could apply for an
internship. Today, she works in the development office, assisting
with the campaign. “But Lillian [Hochstein] made sure I could
also work in the student services office on the fourth floor,” she
says. One of her duties is compiling student surveys, which ask
students to evaluate how things are going for them at FareStart.
“I came across so many good comments that I started crying,”
says Loucks-Emens. Adds Hochstein: “I hear a lot of students
say, ‘I feel like I finally have a family.’”
One such student is Ricky Williams, who was unprepared for
the impact FareStart would have on his life. After moving from
dead-end job to dead-end job in Southern California, he came to
Seattle in the hopes of joining a fishing boat heading for Alaska.
Then someone suggested he take FareStart’s 16-week program.
“I was going to be here just until a boat came,” he admits. “But
now I’m thinking I only have eight weeks left and I don’t want to
go.” In addition to the culinary skills he’s learned, he says that the
life-skills classes changed his view of the future. “The team concept
has really come out for me,” he explains. “The line [in the
kitchen] and the servers, we’re all a team. We’re like family.”
Williams has also turned his sights from joining a fishing
boat crew to applying for a three-year internship with the American
Culinary Federation. “FareStart has given me the confidence
that now I can go out and work with the best of them,” he says.
Originally from Arkansas, Williams plans to return to his
home state someday and open a restaurant. With a grin, he says, “And if somebody comes to my restaurant and says they’ve been
through the FareStart program, they’re hired.”
— By Hope McPherson
— PHOTOS BY mike siegel
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