Café offers Amos House trainees real job skills

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Amos Culinary Education program participants, shown above, receive 12 weeks of food preparation and safety training. /
FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Amos Culinary Education program participants, shown above, receive 12 weeks of food preparation and safety training. /

Amos House holds claim to the largest soup kitchen in the state, serving up to 800 meals each day, but that is not what makes the Providence-based nonprofit unique.
Since its founding 34 years ago, Amos House has grown to provide more than just meals. The organization has developed a holistic approach to addressing hunger and homelessness in the city by offering what is essentially a vertical integration of the steps and services needed to rebuild a life, including temporary transitional and permanent housing, case management, life-skills workshops and job training.
The Amos House’s latest effort to provide job training and employment opportunities for its clients resulted in the establishment of Friendship Café earlier this year. The restaurant will help to train students and graduates of Amos House’s Amos Culinary Education (ACE) program, and also generate revenue for the organization.
The 13-week ACE program teaches students about food safety and preparation, as well as restaurant management and customer service. Since the creation of the ACE program in 2002, Amos House has had 300 men and women graduate from the program and secure jobs in the New England food industry.
As a primary training site for ACE program participants, the Friendship Café expects to see three full-time employees and 30 interns receive training and experience as prep cooks, line cooks, dishwashers, waitstaff and cashiers in its first full year. Amos House’s two other food businesses – an institutional catering business and More Than A Meal, a private catering business – provide an additional 20 jobs and internships for ACE graduates and students.
In addition to culinary-training programs, Amos House also offers Amos Carpentry Training (ACT). Last year, Amos House introduced Amos House Builds, a home-improvement micro-business that employs up to 15 graduates of the ACT program. According to the Amos House application, the nonprofit expects that number to grow to 50 graduate employees in the next two years.
Amos House bases its businesses on what it calls a “triple bottom line theory,” in which each business must generate a profit, create jobs and contribute to the local economy. The nonprofit believes that this model helps distinguish it from other businesses by treating the social elements and results as being equivalent to profit.
Through the development and expansion of various services and initiatives, Amos House has been able to carry on the two core values upon which it was founded: to help people help themselves and to build a community based on dignity and respect.
These values have worked well for Amos House. The nonprofit’s job-training programs have a 65 percent graduation rate, as well as a job-placement rate of 50 percent.
Additionally, while more than 90 percent of the nonprofit’s clients are ex-offenders, the recidivism rate for Amos House clients is less than 10 percent. In comparison, the R.I. Department of Corrections reported a 54 percent recidivism rate for the 2009 calendar year. •

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