Vicky Campbell was ready to take a job as an on-call cashier in the cafeteria at Memorial Hospital in Pawtucket when she heard about a different opportunity and caught a glimpse of two distinct futures: one with a sporadic, minimum-wage job to supplement her weekly welfare check, another with steady work and pay commensurate to a supervisor’s duties.
She chose the latter.
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Today, the Cranston mother of one is among seven women and a man enrolled in a new welfare-to-work program that transforms a food recycling effort into a training ground, and improves the lives of two needy populations along the way. Community Kitchen is a collaboration between the Rhode Island Community Food Bank and the state Department of Human Services. Its goal is to prevent hunger by stopping good food from going to waste and to reduce the welfare rolls by stopping good workers from entering dead-end jobs.
Every weekday since August 11, the group of welfare recipients has gathered in a small kitchen at the West Warwick warehouse where the non-profit Food Bank turns perishable food from area restaurants, hospitals, schools and corporate cafeterias into meals for a variety of social service agencies.
Foodchain, a national organization that sponsors a similar program in Washington, D.C., and the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation each donated $5,000 for various supplies, uniforms and equipment for the program. The DHS pays for instructor Heather Thrift, a chef with a master’s degree from Johnson & Wales University.
The students split their time between classroom instruction — from the handling of cutlery to resume writing — and practice in the kitchen. The 12-week program ends Oct. 31, at which time the participants will take a test to become certified by the state Department of Health in food safety and sanitation.
Campbell — who on a recent afternoon was practicing “vichy,” or half-moon, cuts to carrots bound for a soup — is looking forward to that day.
“I had restaurant experience but it would only lead me into a minimum-wage job and that’s what, $5.15 an hour?” Campbell said. “That really woke me up. That’s when I decided I needed more experience to become a supervisor.
“I can use my certificate,” she said.
Others expressed similar sentiments.
Kathleen Palardi of Coventry was thinking about entering a welding program when her welfare case worker told her about Community Kitchen. The potential to make $13 an hour as a beginning welder was appealing but the job was not, she said.
By enrolling in Community Kitchen, Palardi said she is capitalizing on “prep cook” experience she already has and learning a trade she will stick with.
Without the program, “I could have gotten a job for minimum-wage, but I’d be paying daycare for my two kids,” Palardi said. With the program, “you can get on your feet and get certified and you don’t have to be on welfare.”
Under the state-funded RIte Works program, welfare recipients who graduate from DHS-sponsored training programs and get a job are eligible for 18 months of free medical care for their families and six months of free child care, said Joseph Orsi, a employment and retention specialist for RIte Works. The department also pays for child care and transportation while students are in training, he said.
Welfare recipients aren’t the only ones who can benefit from the deal. Employers can too, Orsi said. Manufacturing and service companies of all sizes qualify for various tax credits and wage subsidies up to $2.50 an hour when they hire a person making the transition from welfare to work, he said.
“It’s totally a win-win for an employer to take one of our students,” said Joe Cournoyer, product marketing manager for the Food Bank.
Of course, the proof of the program is in the pudding — which is why people like Orsi and Cournoyer are quick to point out its initial successes.
Today, 9 out of 10 students enrolled in an eight-week pilot program that ran over the summer are employed in the food service industry, Orsi said. Their entry-level pay ranges from $5.50 an hour to $8 an hour and most are full-time employees, he said. A couple work at the Foxwoods Casino in Ledyard, Conn. Others are employed by chain restaurants and nursing homes, he said.
In one case, the department through RIte Works was able to get a graduate a wage increase from $5.50 an hour to $7 an hour, Orsi said. The raise came with the understanding that she would be put on a management track, he said.
For Cournoyer, the most rewarding aspect of the program became clear when several graduates returned to the Food Bank as volunteers.
“The image of the welfare mother is that of a taker,” he said. “We’ve turned it around so they can be perceived as a giver.”
