At-risk young people train for restaurant, hotel jobs
Sarah Feather is on her third fast-food job in less than two years.
Formerly in a foster home, Feather, 19, takes a bus daily to her job making less than $10 an hour, trying to get as many hours as she can between remedial community college courses. While she envisions a career in the restaurant industry, she said working at fast food restaurants has been disheartening.
“It’s hard to see yourself spending your whole life doing this,” she said. She now lives at Impower, a home in Seminole County for young people aging out of the foster care system. “Without some help, I’m not sure how to move on to something else, though.”
Government, business and nonprofit groups are putting together new programs for at-risk young adults such as Feather, trying to help them get a boost toward better jobs in the restaurant and hospitality industries. Feather is participating in a program called “The Grand Outreach” pairing former foster children with training for restaurants and hospitality jobs.
Second Harvest food bank in Orlando has its own Culinary Training Program to help low-income individuals get jobs in the food industry and Dr. Phillips Charities is giving money to a high school program in Osceola County that offers training for the hospitality industry.
It’s part of a growing effort to create opportunities for disadvantaged groups and fill the overwhelming demand for workers at Central Florida restaurants and hotels.
“Hospitality is the backbone of the Central Florida economy, and we can’t get enough people to fill jobs right now,” said Mary Jo Ross, executive director of the Grand Tour Foundation, a hospitality scholarship charity that organized the foster child training program. “If we can give these young people a head start and some mentorship, they can be running or even owning some of these restaurants.”
The National Restaurant Association says training and retaining workers is the top priority for eateries across the country. It’s become a particular issue in Central Florida where there are more than 7,700 restaurants, according to research firm NPD, that have added more than 30,000 jobs in the last five years. Some 12.8 percent of Central Florida’s workers are employed in the restaurant industry, and managers say there is a need to train people for more than just entry-level positions.
Professor Abraham Pizam, dean of UCF’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management, said there is a growing number of programs in Central Florida to lure people into the hospitality industry.
“If you can bring people in when they are youths and carefully screen them to make sure they can show up on time, learn and communicate, then they can go far in this industry,” he said. “But if you start without any skills or any training, it might be hard to ever get a good paying job.”
Some are working to extend the reach beyond existing college students to those in poor communities or other at-risk groups.
Second Harvest started its 14-week program in 2013, teaching skills such how to fillet a salmon, make sushi and create a recipe portfolio, as well as life skills such as work etiquette and household budgeting. About 200 people have gone through the culinary program.
The Dr. Phillips Charities group recently gave a $60,000 grant to Osceola High School for its Academy of Hospitality program, which is intended to provide young people with job training and an advantage in high-demand industries in the region. The grant came from a need to upgrade the school’s culinary program.
Other programs, such as the one Feather is in, intend to help young people just entering the job market.
The new “Grand Outreach” program gives participants a few weeks of training including foodsafety practices, resume building and interview coaching before sending them out for stints at local restaurants.
The first group was selected from residents at Impower, where many residents work in the restaurant industry but are mostly in entry-level, fast food jobs. Sanford establishments the Smiling Bison, Tennessee Truffle and Sanford Brewing have joined the program, where participants will have a four-week internship working as cooks, servers, brewers or managers.
Before living at Impower, Feather spent three years in a group foster home. When she turned 18, she had to choose between striking out on her own or entering a transitional program where she has to maintain a job or go to school full time.
A friend at Impower helped get her a job at McDonald’s. She learned how to flip burgers and ring up customers, but Feather said she wants to learn more about operating a business as well as cooking and running a full-service kitchen. That’s why restaurants like Tennessee Truffle have signed on, to give participants a high-level view of operations and training some restaurants don’t have time to give when hiring new employees.
After only a few weeks with a small pilot group, Ross said there is interest from officials in Osceola County and elsewhere in the state. She hopes to expand the program into jobs in the hotel industry as well.
Ron Thomas, manager at Sanford restaurant the Smiling Bison, has agreed to bring in participants in the Grand Outreach program and said he hopes to give them a primer in front-ofthe-house operations at his restaurant, preparing them for jobs as servers, hostesses, bartenders or managers.
“Since I started doing this, I’ve been pretty dissatisfied with the average applicant that comes in in terms of the experience they have or the work ethic,” he said. “We want to give these kids exposure to the restaurant world, and show them what its like to let them see if they want to spend the rest of their life doing this.”