Editorial
Front Page - Friday, July 9, 2010
Salvation Army School teaching the homeless a new skill
David Laprad
Chef Terry Epps is the food service manager at the Chattanooga branch of the Salvation Army. He runs the Salvation Army School of Culinary Arts, which teaches homeless people basic culinary skills and then helps them to find a job in their new field. Here, he shows off a vegetable he just plucked from the garden located outside his kitchen. Epps serves between 7,000 and 9,000 meals a month, and he says the organic, pesticide-free food his students grow in the garden, which Ace Hardware donated, reduces his produce cost by 25 percent.
- David Laprad
As the food service manager at the Chattanooga branch of the Salvation Army, Chef Terry Epps has served his share of second helpings. Now he’s helping to give homeless people a second chance at a productive life by teaching them basic culinary skills and helping them to secure a job. His efforts are part of the Salvation Army School of Culinary Arts, which graduated its first class at the end of June and is gearing up for round two.
The goal of the program is to take a person who’s broken but willing to learn, set him on his feet again, and send him into the world with something to offer potential employers. Before showing his students essential knife skills, however, Epps works on their self-esteem. “We have to make them feel good about themselves. If you don’t value yourself, you can’t be of value to anyone else. We try to replace the negative things in their lives with something positive,” he says.
Epps began the inaugural 12-week course with orientation and the distribution of chef uniforms, and then brought in Harold Graham from the Hamilton County Health Department to teach food safety. Once he believed his students, which numbered five, were ready, he brought them into the kitchen and began teaching them how to use a knife.
“Your most marketable skill in the kitchen is how well you can wield a knife. The faster you can cut something up and have it ready to go, the more valuable you’ll be. Kitchens are all about speed,” Epps says.
Epps then taught his students how to cook different things, such as quiche; how to present salads; how to trim meat, fish and poultry; how to present a table; and how to serve. The participants also learned how to complete a job application and did mock interviews. “We tried to teach them everything they’d need to know to find a job,” Epps says.
Even though many of his students hadn’t worked in a long time, Epps expected them to show up every day, on time, and regular written and cooking tests were a part of the curriculum. “It wasn’t a free ride. I told them to come in with a clean uniform and a good attitude, ready to go. I wanted them to change their stars, but they had to be willing to do it.”
Epps’ reference to changing stars comes from the movie, “First Knight.” It refers to individuals who have been in a bad place, or haven’t had the opportunity to improve themselves, and are now changing their lives for the better, he says.
Despite the strict rules, many of the students volunteered to come in on their days off to work in the kitchen and learn additional skills. “Some of them were pure sponges,” Epps says.
At the end of the course, Epps graduated three of his five students. Not only that, but each of his former pupils has secured employment. “One of them is going to be training at Wendy’s. His favorite food in the world is hamburgers, and his favorite hamburger in the world is Wendy’s, so I thought that would be a good fit,” Epps says.
Another former student will be working in the dietary program at Standifer House, while the third has taken a job at Wal-Mart. “The idea is that it’s easier to find work when you have work, so he’s going to continue looking for something in the culinary field,” Epps says.
In addition, two of Epps’ graduates are now in perma-
nent housing.
To learn to be a chef, Epps says he went to the school of hard knocks. He didn’t have the “piece of paper that would allow (him) to make the big bucks,” though, so he attended Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Atlanta. When Major Jim Lawrence, the local Salvation Army Commander, asked him to come to Chattanooga to run the culinary school, Epps was reluctant, but the major eventually won him over. “Money wasn’t as important as I thought it would be,” Epps says.
Before launching the program, Epps spent time with Chef Timothy Tucker, the Salvation Army food service manager in Louisville, Ky., to learn about the program. He then tailored it for the Chattanooga area.
With his first graduating class out the door and good things ahead of his former students, Epps says he couldn’t be happier. “The smiles on their faces when they received their diplomas were all the payment I needed. They were happy and proud, and so were their families,” Epps says.
Epps is currently taking applications for his second class, scheduled to begin in late July. Having survived his first run through, he intends to seek more outside help. Peter Lapina with Black Tie Affair will be teaching the serving part of the class, for example. Epps is planning to take his students to more restaurants so they can get a better sense of the different cooking styles the chefs in Chattanooga use.
Epps will also be staying in touch with his former students and helping to train the graduate who landed the job at Wendy’s. “I don’t want to just send them on their way. I plan on following them for a year and trying to help them out if they run into any problems,” he says.
With its comprehensive approach to turning lives around, the Salvation Army School of Culinary Arts is not only one of the more unique nonprofit programs in Chattanooga, it also has the potential to touch countless other individuals as its graduates “change their stars” and then serve as an inspiration to others whose lives might be broken, but can still be put right.
To find out more about the Salvation Army School of Culinary Arts or to donate your time or resources, call 756-1023.
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