Formerly Homeless Chefs Prepare a Thanksgiving Feast

by Shannon Moriarty · 2009-11-26 05:14:00 UTC
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Twenty-four turkeys, 100 pounds of sweet potatoes, 50 pounds of collard greens and all the fixings. This is the feast being prepared in Brooklyn for over 400 homeless men in Brooklyn. But this meal isn't being fixed by just anybody. It is being cooked by 12 men who used to stand in the soup kitchen lines themselves. Today, they are participants in a job-training cooking program for formerly homeless men. Now that's what I call coming full circle.

Canito Cintron is one of the formerly-homeless chefs. He spent over 20 years on the streets as a drug addict, bouncing from couch, to car, to shelter, to sidewalk. Today, he's proud to say he's turned his life around thanks to the Peter Jay Sharp Center for Opportunity. The Center provides transitional housing and commercial cooking training from a bona fide sous chef. According to the NY Daily News, the participants learn every aspect of cooking with the hope that they'll find a stable career in the food industry.

In the meantime, though, the program participants have their hands full. With 400 homeless men to serve tomorrow, the preparations have taken several days. Still, the rewards of moving from one side of the soup kitchen line to the other are poignant for the program participants. Cintron told the Daily News, ""It's a good feeling when someone says, 'I liked what you cooked."

Image: Life.com

Shannon Moriarty has worked in various homeless shelters and service organizations around the country. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.
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