Belong Kitchen gives adults with mental disabilities paid work.
Nonprofit Belong Kitchen gets adults with mental disabilities off the workforce back burner
The best recipes are from scratch, the ones the cook has poured not only flour or cream into but also time and caring. For one determined Houston mother, cooking up a place in the world for her developmentally delayed daughter took equal parts vision, patience, salesmanship — and a healthy sprinkling of others’ belief in her mission.
Those ingredients have gelled into Belong Kitchen, a nonprofit begun by Kim Brown to give young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including her daughter, a rare chance at dignified, paid employment and some independence. From a space near her alma mater, Memorial High School, 20-year-old Ellie Brown and two dozen co-workers make and sell quick dine-in or grab-and-go meals, coffee and baked goods. Volunteers help make it happen.
Belong Kitchen shares a strip of the new mixed-use development Village Towers with other dining spots Masraff ’s, Treebeards, Texadelphia and Milk & Cookies. Aug. 30 begins a final week of training ahead of an early September opening.
“In all of us, there’s an innate need to contribute and feel valuable,” Brown said. But society’s low expectations of people like her middle daughter mean they get few job opportunities. “I’m not some huge IDD activist. I just know that my daughter is capable.”
Prep work
Today Ellie, whom Brown described as “super social,” likes bowling and the Astros.
Back when she was 6 months old, her mother, a retired attorney, and father, Jay Brown, CFO for an oil field services company, noticed she wasn’t rolling over or reaching the other developmental milestones her older sister had. Childhood was filled with physical, occupational and speech therapy. Eventually, Ellie was mainstreamed into general education reading and math classes with an aide. Ellie still reads at a first or second grade level, according to her mother.
High school brought a focus on employability. But as graduation neared, the odds were stacked against her. In Texas, 94 percent of adults with IDD are unemployed, according to “The Case for Inclusion 2021,” a policy report produced by United Cerebral Palsy and the American Network of Community Options and Resources Foundation. Nationally, the average is 80 percent.
After an internship at a hospital didn’t lead to a job for Ellie, “it dawned on me (in a planning meeting with school officials), ‘I’ve got to make something happen,’ ” Brown recalled.
Before graduating in May 2020, Ellie had shown interest in cooking. Brown clicked with Jennifer Cardenas, who had taught special education cooking classes and run a high school culinary arts program training future chefs. Brown created the 501(c)(3) nonprofit that would become Belong Kitchen. Cardenas signed on as program director.
The pandemic presented an unexpected opportunity. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Ellie and a half dozen other young adults with IDD gathered in the Browns’ home kitchen, prayed together, turned on music and got down to the business at hand: learning how to make “party
pan” meals, such as King Ranch casserole and chicken enchiladas, along with simple desserts. With restaurants closed, people placed orders for each week’s featured dish via Instagram link, and they sold out fast.
“I like to make cookies, and now I’m making this noodles thing,” Ellie said one Tuesday last fall while the group worked on cannelloni, pasta tubes stuffed with spinach and ricotta and covered with a creamy tomato sauce. They were placing eight in each tray to be baked.
With songs by Luke Bryan, Michael Jackson and Queen on shuffle, Cardenas oversaw the crew gathered around the kitchen island.
“Make sure they’re fully stuffed,” she told John Pitner. “How many do you have there?” “Seven,” he replied. “How many more do you need?” she prompted. “One.”
“Yes!”
Cardenas said she delights in helping discern who most enjoys and shows skill at cooking or washing dishes, which Ellie likes. “I’m not grading them, just guiding them. … They always know they can ask for help. It’s a relaxed atmosphere. We celebrate successes. It doesn’t matter what their skill level is, everybody has a job. But they blow my mind.”
In addition to providing training and transferable job skills, Belong is ensuring staffers earn food-handler certification. And their parents are grateful for that and more.
“Kim’s got the magic touch,” said Pitner’s father, Matt Pitner, who helped with initial fundraising. “People will want to come to support the cause. But put the cause aside: The food is delicious.”
Assembling the ingredients
Meanwhile, Brown was hunting for a landlord. But no one wanted to take a chance on an upstart nonprofit with no sales track record.
At the end of 2020, she finally got a “yes.”
Brett Moody, founder of real estate developer Moody National Companies, agreed Belong Kitchen would be a good fit for his new Village Towers Plaza, the garage/dining side of Village Towers. Besides Belong’s social value, he wanted “walkability for lunch options” in the mixed office/retail development just off the Katy Freeway feeder road. Workers in the tower offices, which include Moody’s headquarters, Veritex Community Bank and Spur Energy Partners, and neighborhood residents patronize the family, casual and fine-dining options on the sixstory development’s ground floor.
“I was contacted by a halfdozen politicians, pastors and community leaders on Kim’s behalf. She was persistent,” Moody said, noting he was swayed by “her heart behind the business.” “… We were excited to make a contribution to the community with a focus on specialneeds associates. It’s not a charity; she does pay rent. We were very selective in our retail lineup.”
Supporters braved the frigid air to attend a prayer dedication of the spot just after February’s winter storm cleared.
Next, Brown faced a steep learning curve — what does it take to run a commercial kitchen? Vent hoods. Tilt skillets. Prep tables. Walk-in coolers. Hiring a general manager. It was all new.
An acquaintance knew Chris Pappas, the CEO of Pappas Restaurants, whose Houston institutions include Pappasito’s Cantina, Pappas Bros. Steakhouse, Pappadeaux Seafood Kitchen and more. “Mr. Pappasito’s,” as Brown jokingly calls him, donated equipment or helped her buy it for less at auction, and made sure Belong was set up efficiently.
“When I heard the Belong story and Kim’s vision to grow beyond her home and into a restaurant-style kitchen, I knew the challenges she would face and that Pappas Restaurants could help,” Pappas said. “We … look forward to many delicious meals prepared by Belong’s talented team.”
Brown almost can’t name all the other helpers — those who raised money, donated a countertop or now volunteer with the staffers.
“I continue to be overwhelmed with generosity,” Brown said.
Plating and serving
It was important to establish Belong Kitchen in her family’s neighborhood “so the community can be a part of it,” Brown said. “If we’d rented a warehouse, I felt like we would’ve been hiding somewhere. This says that we do belong here. That sounds so cheesy.”
This spring, Cardenas hired more than 25 young adults with IDD. Unlike some other programs, “This isn’t pay to play,” Brown noted. There is no tuition or fee required to work for a paycheck (though the hours of staffers who collect federal Supplemental Security Income are capped so they retain their benefits).
“I want parents coming through after me to have options,” Brown said. “… Everyone knows somebody who has a child who struggles. Somebody needs to save the whales. Someone needs to save the forests. But this is something concrete, it’s human, and it’s something we need to do.”