News for Achievements

Class 91′s Darrell Wainwright: A Life Back On Track

Darrell Wainwright is a US Air Force veteran who served his country honorably. After getting out of the Air Force, he made some bad decisions. He spent most of his adult life addicted, and he’s been to prison so many times he doesn’t remember exactly how many. But that’s all in the past.

Earlier this year, Darrell was living in the New York Avenue homeless shelter looking for a way to get his life back on track permanently when he saw a flyer for DC Central Kitchen’s Culinary Job Training program. He applied, was accepted to Class 91, and, with DC Central Kitchen’s help, he moved into veterans’ housing.

14 weeks later on April 5, Darrell graduated from the program. On April 29, DC Central Kitchen hired him as a production cook. A few weeks ago, Darrell started his associate’s degree in hospitality management at the University of the District of Columbia.

Darrell isn’t an anomaly. DC Central Kitchen is bursting at the seams with stories of graduates like Darrell who have come to the Kitchen to get the tools they need to find their motivation, change their attitude, and rebuild the skills they need to get and keep a job.

Darrell says, “DC Central Kitchen isn’t just about cooking. It’s about changing your way of thinking.”

March a Breakthrough Month for First Helping

March was a month of breakthroughs and new chapters for First Helping clients. Some of clients who we have been engaging for a long time on the streets opened up to receive some additional support.

Take for example a man named Maurice, who spent 27 years in prison, and then came home in 2010 with no support system. He came to First Helping’s feeding site every day for a meal and began to develop a relationship with our outreach team. Maurice was a client that was often seen, but never heard. He always stayed to himself and very seldom spoke.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Maurice revealed to First Helping that he suffered from a drinking problem, and feared that if he didn’t get into a treatment program he would return back to prison to finish up his time on parole until 2024. Maurice had his clothes in hand and was ready restart his life that day, and the First Helping team was able to get him into a treatment program.

Check out some of our other First Helping successes from last month:

Substance Abuse

• 1 male clients entered drug program

Outpatient Mental Health Linkages

• 3 clients received outpatient Mental Health services

Benefits/Employment

• 1 client completed Home Health Aid Certification and is now employed
• 1 client entered the Culinary Job Training Program through First Helping Outreach
• 1 client participated in UPO Weatherization Training
• 1 client was enrolled to receive Veterans Benefits
• 1 client was enrolled to receive Supplemental Disability

Highlights

• 2 clients received eye glasses from Lens Crafters
• 1 client received a TB test
• 2 clients received their driver’s license
• 7 clients came to the Empowerment Workshop entitled “What Gets in My Way”

We Are The Job Creators

This post, republished from The Huffington Post, kicks off our Job Raising Campaign. You can join us in shortening the line and empowering men and women to change their lives. Visit our Crowdrise page and make a contribution today. Your contribution helps us reach our goal of winning $150,000 from the Skoll Foundation. Tell your friends and spread the word.

Lots of smart, good, hard-working people give their time, money, and energy to DC Central Kitchen because they think we’re a great charity. We are thrilled that people support us because they feel we are doing the right thing or the good thing, but we really hope people understand that what we are doing is the smart thing.

For too long those of us in the nonprofit sector have been happy to fit ourselves into the charity model – give us your pennies and we’ll solve your dollar problems – but we have to be honest and say that that simply isn’t getting us to the place we need to be. We may have the heart of a nonprofit, but our brain is all business. In fact, today, we are an $11 million per year business – and our leading product is empowerment. The difference between us and a “regular” business, however, is that business is in it to make money; we’re in it to make change.

At DCCK, our social enterprises, which include the production of nearly 5,000 healthy, scratch-cooked school meals each day and a gourmet catering company that generated $1.3 million in revenue last year, are not separate from our social service programs. Instead, they are extensions of our mission. We operate two busy commercial kitchens here in the District of Columbia, staffed almost entirely with graduates of our Culinary Job Training program. The men and women we train come to us after extended stays in prison cells, at drug rehabilitation programs, or on the welfare rolls. First, we help them get their heads right. Next, we give them tangible skills for work in the culinary industry. Finally, we help them find jobs. Many find those jobs at DC Central Kitchen.

Today, 68 graduates of our program work for us. Every new hire starts at a living wage – in DC, that’s $12.50 an hour, with 100% paid health benefits, life insurance, paid sick leave and a company matched retirement plan. We didn’t start offering these packages because we had lots of money to spare. We did it to model to other employers, nonprofit and for-profit, that they can pay people well, provide great products and services, and still show a profit at the end of the day.

Now, after three years of rapid growth in our social enterprise activities, we have lots of that proof. Our Healthy School Food program is earning month-to-month profits, exceeding student participation targets, and providing schools in low-income DC neighborhoods with higher quality food service than they have ever had. Our catering company saw significant revenue growth in 2012, thanks to our expansion into a new kitchen facility. We’ve even begun delivering fresh produce and nutritious, handmade snacks to 29 corner stores in Washington’s ‘food deserts.’ In just the fourth quarter of last year, those participating retailers topped $10,000 in sales, showing that the residents of these communities will make healthy choices – they just need the opportunity, knowledge, and means to do so.

At DC Central Kitchen, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on local farm products each year, pay living wages, and train men and women that others have written off as helpless, or even hopeless, for real careers. We don’t do these things because they make us feel good. We don’t do them because donors tell us to. We do these things because they are the smartest things we can do in service of our community and our common future.

2012 Achievements

2012 has been an incredible year for DC Central Kitchen.

Take a look at some the things we’ve accomplished this year:

• Placed 89% of our culinary graduates into jobs.
• Doubled the amount of fresh produce recovered from 30% to 60% of all food donations.
• Produced 1.96 million balanced meals for partner agencies and 800,000 meals for DC schools.
• Built a new Culinary Classroom and Computer Lab for our Culinary Job Training program.
• Became a certified job training program for the first time.
• Helped 59 chronically homeless men and women secure stable housing.
• Guided 49 chronically homeless men and women into recovery programs, setting them on the road to recovery.
• Pioneered a “wraparound” approach to promoting healthy food in DC neighborhoods by combating food deserts, producing healthy school and after-school meals, and providing nutrition education.
• Achieved a 4 Star Charity Navigator rating for the 2nd consecutive year for our transparency and accountability.

We’ve also built many exciting new partnerships. If you donate between December 24th and December 31st, the AARP Foundation will match your donation up to $50,000. Donate now to double your impact!

Thank you for being a big part of our success this year.