DoorDash, a popular food delivery company, has partnered with Farm Fresh RI’s Harvest Kitchen program to increase “support to program participants outside of the culinary program hours,” according to a press release from DoorDash. Harvest Kitchen trainees will receive $2,500 in DoorDash gift cards as part of DoorDash’s Community Credits program, a national initiative launched in 2021.
Harvest Kitchen is a 20-week culinary job training program, where youth aged 16-19 involved with Rhode Island’s Department of Children, Youth and Families are trained by chefs in the preparation of various food products. These trainees are responsible for creating Farm Fresh’s “value-added products,” which aim to revitalize produce from local farmers.
According to John Scott, a DCYF community liaison, trainees are selected from within DCYF through a multi-stage process. First, Harvest Kitchen sends out a notice to DCYF workers in both the Rhode Island Training School and the Office of Juvenile Probation — the two branches of DCYF’s juvenile correctional services program. Interested youth can fill out an application indicating their interest in the program, and Harvest Kitchen members select applicants from that pool following an interview period.
According to Sean Kontos, program director for Harvest Kitchen, the program enables trainees to develop a broad range of culinary skills, which helps them secure future employment. He added that Harvest Kitchen staff also try to connect trainees with internships or jobs during and after the program, introducing trainees to the real-life experience of employment within a secure environment.
The program began in 2009, stemming both from farmers’ desire to make use of their surplus produce and DCYF’s mission to support at-risk youth. Kontos shared that when Harvest Kitchen began, all of the trainees were in post-juvenile detention.
Misty Delgado, DCYF chief of staff, said the idea for the program came from Division of Youth Development staff who worked at the Rhode Island Training School. Delgado explained that upon leaving the training school, many trainees would express a desire to start working but had limited support and were not prepared to work. Partnering with Harvest Kitchen enables trainees to develop important skills in an environment where staff “understood their background,” Delgado said.
According to Kontos, food insecurity is a relatively common challenge faced by trainees. He added that, while students might not always share that they’re experiencing food insecurity, he and other staff members often pick up on subtle cues.
“If somebody’s coming in and they’re hungry immediately, or they want to take some food home with them… (There are) ways that we can glean what’s going on outside of work,” Kontos explained.
Delgado said that DCYF wasn’t involved in the formation of the DoorDash partnership, but the department is grateful that “community partners and corporate partners are having these discussions about our kids, because the reality is DCYF can’t do this on our own.”
“Those kids are in such a vulnerable space that they need the support immediately,” Delgado said. Harvest Kitchen “allows them to take their skills out into the world not just while they’re involved with us, but hopefully,” after they leave the program.
Christina Kennedy, senior manager of government affairs in New England at DoorDash, stated in the press release that DoorDash is “proud to collaborate with Farm Fresh Rhode Island and (hopes) that providing them with the resources and tools they need will help young people in need across Rhode Island thrive.”
Yael is a senior staff writer covering city and state politics. She is junior, and hails from the Bay Area.
