Right here in the United States, the Don Bosco Community Center in Port Chester, New York, has started Café Alma, a culinary arts job training program for local teens. This new program kicked off in October with a pre-launch event hosted by Chef Rafael Palomino of Bistro Latino in Greenwich and Sonora Restaurant in Port Chester. Chef Palomino is heading up the training programs which target youth 14 to 19 years old and offer classes ranging from basic knife skills to a full culinary arts training program. The training program’s 10-class curriculum is limited to 12 students per session in order to keep the student-to-chef ratio low, allowing for more focused one-on-one attention.

“We have begun classes with our first group of local teens and we are pleased to have them here tonight to help with this fantastic event,” said Father Richard Alejunas, executive director of the Don Bosco Community Center, in a recent press release about the inaugural event for the program.

As with many Salesian technical and vocational training programs, the work goes far beyond the classroom. In order for students to truly experience the benefits of the skills they acquire, the program has built partnerships with local chefs within the community. These chefs will provide their expertise during the training and will be among those hiring graduates after their successful completion of the program.

“We began this effort in 2010 to provide meaningful job training to our youth in the Port Chester community,” explains Ann Heekin, event chair for the program, in the same launch press release. “Through the generosity of the local community, we have a solid culinary curriculum in place and a waiting list of students for the program.”

The new culinary arts program is just one of many services offered at the Don Bosco Community Center, which has been providing for the local population for over eighty years. Other services include a soup kitchen and food pantry, educational programming for youth and adults and help for new immigrants and Port Chester’s long-time residents who have lived near or in poverty for years. The Community Center’s services are open to all, including adult men and women, parents in need, the elderly, the unemployed, the working poor, immigrant and day laborers and the homeless.

“Our primary goal of all our programs is to facilitate integration, increase self-sufficiency and to decrease community tension while promoting the healthy development of youth, families and immigrants in Port Chester,” adds Fr. Alejunas.

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Sources

Don Bosco Community Center Port Chester, NY – Website

Don Bosco and Local Chefs Start Culinary Program for Teens

The post UNITED STATES: New Culinary Arts Program Gives Youth Job Training Skills first appeared on MissionNewswire.

The Center provides a soup kitchen, food pantry and educational programming for youth and adults. It also offers services to new immigrants and Port Chester’s long-time residents who have lived near or in poverty for years. Services are open to all adult men and women including parents in need, the elderly, the unemployed, the working poor, the immigrant and day laborers as well as the homeless.

“The primary goal of all our programs is to facilitate integration, increase self-sufficiency and decrease community tension while promoting the healthy development of youth, families and immigrants in Port Chester,” said Father Richard Alejunas, the executive director of the Don Bosco Community Center.

Since 2005, Salesian Missions has made substantial contributions to Don Bosco Community Center youth outreach programs by providing funding for building improvements and most recently, scholarship and financial aid assistance for its youth summer day camp.

Specifically for youth, the Don Bosco Community Center provides a Boys and Girls Club during the school year which offers a hot meal program to its members after school and on weekends. During the summer, the Community Center runs a youth recreational camp that operates from late June into August.

While camp costs roughly $700 per camper, past funding from Salesian Missions provided enough scholarships to enable 150 youth to attend camp free of charge. There, youth are able to participate in team sports, socialize with their peers and engage in skill-building activities. In addition, campers are provided breakfast, lunch and afternoon snacks. For working parents, both before care and after care are available.

“The entire Village of Port Chester benefits from this project as well as all of the Community Center’s activities,” said Fr. Alejunas. “Our local community is becoming younger and poorer at the same time. Anything we can do to alleviate poverty and increase the quality of life of the young and our neighbors is not a luxury or an extravagance, but essential to building civic society.”

Most recently, the Don Bosco Boys and Girls Club launched Café Alma, a new culinary arts training program at the Community Center. The new program is part of a $2 million expansion aimed at enhancing the quality of life and providing future career prospects to the more than 1,000 youth that utilize the center each year. In June, a culinary educational pilot program for teens ages 13 to 19 began in the existing kitchen at Don Bosco. The hope is that the program will move into its new home when the building addition is constructed in 2013.

The expansion has drawn the attention of numerous Port Chester restauranteurs including Chef Rafael Palomino (owner of Sonora), Sasa Mahr-Batuz and Andy Pforzheimer (owners of Bartaco) and Chef Andy Nusser (co-owner of Tarry Lodge). Local chefs will help develop the curriculum for the new culinary program and Chef Palomino has pledged his support to outfit the new culinary arts training center with state-of-the-art equipment.

“Our kids have big aspirations from owning restaurants to running their own businesses,” said Fr. Alejunas. “The expansion and this educational initiative will provide them the resources they need to achieve these goals.”

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Sources:

Don Bosco Community Center Port Chester, NY – Website

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