History

Inspiration

Several years, ago back in 2017, there were a number of things that were going on in my life and I decided it was the right time to devote more of my energy to community service.

So as part of that I started volunteering for a couple of different local organizations. One was Urban Peak which focuses on adolescent homelessness. Another was Jewish Family Services (JFS), which a friend invited me to for a luncheon.

At the time, I did not realize that JFS does a lot of work with prevention on the front end, by helping people that are experiencing challenges. Their whole mission was to help prevent people from coming into homelessness in the first place. I decided to volunteer in the Family Safety Net program.

As part of that work, including doing some benchmarking, I got to know a bunch of different organizations here in Denver that do great work. Through that effort, I learned about the Housing First model, and also that federal dollars for prevention were going to be more difficult to raise in the future.

New Focus

Because of this, I had an opportunity to bring about – not a new model – but a new focus where we combine housing along with mental health services, workforce development and employment. We want to help people become self-sufficient and exit homelessness.

What I learned from my direct experience at the two organizations and then in the benchmarking, was that there are many great organizations doing great work. They might be doing mental health services but depending on the client and the organization. Or, they may have a lot of no-shows because the person had a transportation issue or they had something going on at home.

There are many inefficiencies when you have separate organizations focusing on just one piece of the puzzle.  Even though they’re doing great work and great programming, the fact that they’re all independent often means it’s not coordinated and also the services are not always received.

Bring Together Existing Programs

By bringing together this existing programming, we can approach this from a holistic model. Like saying: “Someone clearly can’t get a job if they don’t have housing.”, or, “It doesn’t matter how much training they receive if they don’t have housing.”

It’s very difficult to keep a job. And if you don’t have a job it’s hard to keep housing. And it’s hard to do anything if your mental health isn’t in a place where you can focus. These are the 3 legs of the stool and you need all 3:  housing, employment, and mental health.

What we’ve really paid attention to is: “Let’s not reinvent the wheel. Let’s take advantage of existing programming.”  Our approach is very much a partner based approach – to leverage and utilize some of the community’s programming and organizations that are already doing great work. We try to bring them all together and deliver that in a more coordinated fashion, where we provide and address all 3 legs of the stool.

Training Curriculum

We have put together a 12-month program for our students. During the first two months they get intensive training at our commercial kitchen, the Ft Logan Eatery, using a curriculum provided by our partner, Emily Griffith Technical College. They are a great organization and they know what they’re doing and they know how to deliver the curriculum. We didn’t try to create a brand new curriculum when we can leverage what’s already there.

After two months of training the students stay in the kitchen and get real-world experience through a four-month follow-up internship. It is hands-on training and hands-on apprenticeship so they get experiences doing lots of different types of culinary tasks, and hone their skills. And they also work on a lot of the soft skills which are so important in getting and keeping employment..

To be successful long-term in a position, you need to do more, and know more than just the ABCs of the technical aspects. You need to be able to get along with people, talk to people, have good etiquette and all the things that most of us just take for granted.

But for a lot of people there could be anxiety. Maybe they have difficulty working with people directly. There are a lot of things that we work on to help make sure that all of our students are in a position where they can be very successful going to the next stage.

Soft Skills

And they also work on a lot of the soft skills which are so important in getting and keeping employment..

To be successful long-term in a position, you need to do more, and know more, the ABCs of the technical aspects. You need to be able to get along with people, talk to people have good etiquette and all the things that most of us just take for granted.

But for a lot of people there could be anxiety. Maybe they have difficulty working with people directly. There are a lot of things that we work on to help make sure that all of our students are in a position where they can be very successful going to the next stage.

Volunteers and Partners

We also work with a number of volunteers. Our volunteers feel good about helping but then they also see that our students are people just like themselves. That they’re nice, they’re polite, they’re clean, they care, they have great skills, they want to work hard, they want to show up and they want to contribute.

Our partners such as Kaladi Coffee Roasters and Awake Denver resell our snacks and baked goods to their customers.