Childhood Hunger

Bill Shore’s Letters

Letter from a Culinary School With the Recipe for Ending Childhood Hunger

January 2008

Dear Friend

If you ever have one of those days when you ask yourself if it’s worth it — perhaps a Taste organizer has resigned, or a corporate sponsor did not renew, or a colleagues hasn’t given you the information you need, and you’re tired of the commute, and have more e-mails than time — spend an hour with Ron Ahlert, the executive chef at the Community Culinary School of Charlotte.

I was in North Carolina on Friday to meet the vice president of Wachovia Bank. It was arranged by veteran Taste Chair Tom Sasser who hopes Wachovia will become a national sponsor of Taste. First we stopped at the Culinary School to meet the Taste committee and take a tour. The Culinary School is a Share Our Strength grant recipient along with the local food bank. Housed in one large kitchen and an adjacent classroom, the school provides job training in the food service industry to those who face significant barriers to employment.

A sign on the blackboard said “welcome Taste Buds” which is how they think of the volunteers on the Taste committee. Chef Ron, a large man with a ready smile met us at the door to show us around and express his gratitude for our support. The kitchen bustled with staff and students preparing meals for the homebound, under the direction of Sibyl Durant, who came to the Culinary School in 1997 after years of struggling with drugs, unplanned pregnancies, and prison.

850 meals a day are prepared and then distributed to the elderly, ill, and others. This morning they are preparing trays of fish (Pollack) rice and corn. The students “pay” for the 12-14 week course by helping with the food distribution. The school enjoys a 98% job placement rate for its graduates. This type of job training has been tried in many places but rarely executed with such success.

“We have 23 students in this 30th class,” Ron tells me. “We hope to have 65 students a year. We have already graduated 525. Most of these folks face serious obstacles to employment. They dealt with drug or alcohol addiction, or incarceration.” Ron has a story to share about almost every one of them, including a man “who came to us after 16 years in prison. His business partner stole from him. They had a fight. Two shots changed his life forever. I didn’t want to know more than that. But he’s been with us since last fall and is doing an amazing job.”

The annual budget for the Culinary School is $300,000, which makes Share Our Strength one of its largest supporters. They also have a small community wealth enterprise, a catering business, Encore Catering, to bring in additional unrestricted revenues.

I asked Ron if he was from Charlotte. “No, New York City, I was executive chef of a major hotel chain for years. My wife is a lawyer and makes the money now, and I was called to do this work. I don’t mean called in some religious way, but called in a human to human way. I know Share Our Strength’s focus is on childhood hunger” Ron said, “but I think the best way to make sure kids aren’t hungry is for their parents to have a job.”

We took a group photo with the current class of students and I got to talk with many of them. None knew a thing about Share Our Strength. But they all knew that somewhere, someone had made possible not a meal, but a second chance, a chance on which the rest of their lives depended.

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of Taste of the Nation, think about the many other stories there must be. The Community Culinary School is just one of several grant recipients in just one of 55 Taste cities, in just one of the 20 years since we’ve been raising and granting funds through Taste.

Chef Ron’s been doing this work for over ten years. But if you’re ever having one of those days I mentioned above, all you’ll need is ten minutes with him to know that his time and yours has been worth it.

« Previous letter | Main