Our Approach
Our Approach
We collaborate with other non-profit organizations that assist and provide services for youth from underserved communities. To remove any barriers stopping organizations from working with us, we work hard to fundraise and write grant proposals to cover the costs of classes.
We identify organizations that would be a good fit for Chef Angels and create custom culinary programs unique to each organization’s needs. Some of the smaller programs benefit from a 100% hands-on cooking class approach. At the larger facilities, a combination of hands-on with a few youth volunteers, and the remainder of the youth watching in the audience, works well. Our tailored classes let us work with a large variety of organizations. In some cases, we offer field trip classes where we bring the youth to culinary businesses and organizations in San Diego for a tour, to learn about job opportunities or education enrollment, and of course, to cook. An important aspect of these types of classes is the education and opportunity the students are exposed to. Often we will have the chef instructor share their life story as a way to inspire the youth to consider culinary as a profession, or at the very least, start cooking for themselves.
Our Program Highlights
At Chef Angels, we understand that each organization has unique needs. Our flexible class programs let us work with a large variety of organizations, allowing us to give them the instruction and support they need
Varsity Team
Varsity Team is a nonprofit that has several small group homes for youth. They specialize in behavioral therapy. The home we have been working in since November 2022 is a six bed facility for boys ages 12 to 18 years old, most of whom are foster youth. In this home, we teach the classes in the family home kitchen where they live, we use a very hands on approach, and have the boys prepare that night’s family dinner with us.
Youth Assistance Coalition
Youth Assistance Coalition is a drop-in center for homeless youth 12 to 24 years old. At this facility, they have limited kitchen space, so we set up a demo table with some very basic equipment. Since a lot of the youth are unhoused or will soon be housed in accommodations with limited and basic kitchens, these teaching methods help them learn how to cook in the small space they have and with the limited tools that they may have. They are served dinner from 5 to 6 PM, and then we start our class at 6:30 PM. We do a demo style, recruiting about 2 to 4 youth from the audience to help us chop and prep and cook. Depending on the class subject, the youth watching will be invited up to participate.
Promises2Kids
Our newest program is for Promises2Kids. We are working with their former foster youth, ages 18 to 21, who are enrolled in their Guardian Scholar mentorship program.
With each mentor group, we hosted an introductory class with an assigned chef instructor who fit the unique needs of the group. For example, a Mexican chef taught the LatinX group, and a wife-and-wife chef team taught the LGBTQ+ group.
Our trips with this group have included a tour of Specialty Produce, where we held a class in their test kitchen, and a tour of Catalina Offshore Products, where we learned about the fish market and held a sushi-making class.
This program aims to introduce the youth to all aspects of the culinary industry in San Diego.
Our Impact
