Delicious magic is happening at Extraordinary Charities on Old Okeechobee Road in West Palm Beach.
Students from age 14 to young adults are learning skills that will start them on the road to self-sufficiency and independence through Recipes for Success, the organization’s newest program.
Some students are referred by local agencies; others want to learn to cook for themselves or their families or a career, Executive Director Christine Raymond said.
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About half of the students are neuro-divergent, which means they experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. The term is often used in the context of autism spectrum disorder, ADHD or learning disabilities.
Opportunities for neurodivergent or other marginalized young people are limited, but in many cases, these workers are underestimated and over-analyzed. Working in the restaurant or food service industry requires a skill set that many are able to master. This allows them to staff jobs that restaurants find hard to fill with dependable workers and it starts them on the road to self-sufficiency and independence.
The Recipes for Success program is twofold:
- First, they provide culinary training and nationally recognized certification to underserved people. Students participate in an eight-week training program. Students who complete the program are matched with jobs with restaurant partners or in-house with Recipes for Success’ catering division, which is part two.
- Extraordinary Charities’ catering business provides employment opportunities for Recipes for Success graduates and provides revenue that keeps the school solvent.
The school depends on donations and grants to cover most of the tuition, about $1,500 per student, plus supplies including a uniform and knife set (every student gets these), which is another $1,000. Food and supplies for a week’s worth of classes are $500.
“Catering is a revenue source we control,” Raymond said. “It’s making money and is ready to expand.”
They can handle big events now. The program catered a 300-person event for Bak Middle School of the Arts and were the caterers for Evening on Antique Row, a huge outdoor event hosted in April by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.
What is Extraordinary Charities?
The organization began in 2013 when philanthropists Beverlee Miller Raymond and John J. Raymond Jr. were trying to make sense of myriad, small nonprofit organizations in Palm Beach County.
They created Extraordinary Charities, a directory that vetted and categorized hundreds of local nonprofits with annual budgets of $3 million or less and came up with “51 organizations judged to be transparent, sustainable, effective and unique.”
The directory was mailed to 11,500 homes with household incomes of $500,000 a year or more.
The group continues to produce the directory annually. The material is always fresh. Charities can spend two years on the list before they’re moved to an archive section on EC’s website (www.ecpbc.org) to give newly selected charities a chance.
In 2019, the organization acquired the Old Okeechobee Road property in unincorporated West Palm Beach for $1.8 million. They gutted the former restaurant and spent $1.2 million on renovations.
Now the site features 16,000-square-feet of space divided between Recipes for Success and the EC’s non-profit co-working center.
The center provides office space for nine nonprofits, a business center, a laundry room and showers, and a communal breakroom that looks like a small cafe. There’s meeting and event space big enough for 100 people and any charity included in the directory can use the facilities.
The office space, Raymond says, is “a launching pad” for the small nonprofits. “They get below-market rent and tons of support from the EC team.”
Recipes for Success, Extraordinary Charities food training program and its catering business, occupy the 5,000-square foot commercial kitchen that fills the rest of the building.
In the kitchen where it happens
It has a walk-in refrigerator/freezer that’s bigger than a one-bedroom apartment. EC spent $250,000 on new commercial kitchen equipment, financed by grants and private donations to get ready for students.
Classes of 12-15 students learn under the watchful eye of Chef Greg Schiff. Raymond calls him “the secret sauce” of the program. His gleaming white apron, strong back and huge calf muscles attest to his years on his feet in the kitchen.
Schiff, who formerly taught classes at Sur La Table, is a natural teacher. “I just love to pass on my expertise, what I’ve learned, to others,” he said, “and this seems more like an interaction with friends.”
The students learn to do everything that Schiff would teach a new prep cook, but the bigger goal is personal independence. “I like to find what they’re good at and build on that,” he said.
Class composition is about half neuro-typical and half neuro-divergent and about 90 percent of the students are referred by agencies like Potentia Academy, a private, not-for-profit school serving students with unique learning needs.
One class matched young adults from Vita Nova, which is “a bridge to independence for former foster care and other homeless youth,” and visually impaired students from the Lighthouse for the Blind.
The students from Vita Nova, who are usually mentees, became mentors to their blind classmates, helping them navigate the unfamiliar space and supporting them as they learned new skills. That role reversal gave them a new perspective, Raymond said.
The ultimate goal is employment in food prep in a professional kitchen. EC has a strong connection with The Breakers Palm Beach resort and with Rodney Mayo’s Subculture Group, which owns restaurants including DADA, Hullabaloo, Howley’s, Sassafras and Kapow.
“We’d love to add more restaurant partners,” Raymond said. “We’re working on a way to get the word out to them.” Schiff believes restaurants would and should welcome his students, who he says “are like sponges. They suck up everything.”
These young people are often underestimated, even by their own families. “We’ve never had a student that we couldn’t connect with,” Schiff said. “We don’t push ourselves on them. I talk to them just like I’m talking to you. It’s like opening a door for them when they know they’re in a safe place. These guys are capable of anything. Don’t underestimate them.”
And students learn more than cooking, Raymond said. Recipes for Success students also receive help with resume writing, interviewing skills, financial literacy and professionalism.
“There’s an intangible benefit to what we do. We see kids who won’t make eye contact or talk to a stranger suddenly become the life of the party.” Polishing interpersonal skills is just as important as knife skills for some students.
The offerings don’t stop there. The kitchen offers cooking classes for adults, including date night classes, and they do team building classes for businesses. Raymond has other ideas as well that would include feeding the community. “Food insecurity is a huge problem.”
To find out more about Extraordinary Charities and its culinary program, call Christine Raymond at 561-336-7032.
This story was originally published by Stet News Palm Beach, a WLRN News partner.
