Graduates of Ottawa Mission’s kitchen program giving people new paths

Another chapter of graduates has completed the Ottawa Mission’s Food Training Services Program, which gives people who are homeless — or at risk — to gain skills to improve their situation.

There are 27 people in this cohort after over 250 applied. The program runs three times a year for four months at a time. Students are expected to complete learning four hours a day, five times a week, gaining skills to work in commercial kitchens.

“It was designed as a training program to get people homeless or people risk of being homeless off, social services and back into the workforce,” Chef Ric Allen-Watson told CityNews in an interview.

Students are shuffled through the Mission’s catering business, shelter kitchen and food truck to gain skills all while balancing theory studies. Allen-Watson said they use the same textbook as the local college’s culinary program and have guest chefs from around the region teach.

Near the end of the program, the students have a 40-hour placement with a local business like a hotel or restaurant. Allen-Watson said they try to help cater the placement to what the student wants to do after graduation.

For this group, he said the most memorable experience was being able to see one of the students reunited with their family.

“It was wonderful. They were able to spend time with their children again, and they were so happy. They changed their life,” he said.

The graduation ceremony will take place on Thursday from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. in the Ottawa Mission dining room.

‘I could see myself’: How the program got its start

This group of students is the 43rd cohort of the program that has been running since 2004 when five people graduated. Over the years it has successfully given 400 people the skills to get jobs in the industry with a 90 per cent success rate, Allen-Watson said.

The program is special not only because it helps give people a source of income and turn their lives around, but for Allen-Watson the project is his “baby.”

The chef grew up in Kingston with a mother who was mentally ill. When he was 14, Allen-Watson’s mom asked him to move out and he ended up on the streets with substance abuse problems.

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“I still managed to pull myself out and I got a job at Queens University in Danbury Hall, washing dishes,” he said. “One of the staff there saw that I had some potential and convinced me to go back to school.”

Where he gained his Red Seal Chefs papers and headed out west to manage a hotel restaurant. But something pulled Allen-Watson back to Ontario, where he ended up volunteering at the Mission.

“When I looked at the guys, I was serving, I could see myself and I could see people with lots of potential that really just needed a hand,” he said. “So that’s how the program got started.”