We are so proud of how much we accomplished in one year celebrating the culinary traditions of newly resettled refugees, immigrants and asylees, while creating opportunities for supplementary income for them.  In one year, the leadership team grew from six to ten, and we recently added Sanctuary Kitchen Catering to the menu of our offerings. We have worked with over 35 refugee and immigrant chefs, 88% of whom are women, from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Mexico, Ecuador and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We hosted more than 60 events, including 26 cooking classes and demonstrations, 10 supper clubs, 15 special events, 18 catered events, and an interpreter training, generating more than $17,000 income for the chefs.
We also provided business training classes for 11 chefs who are interested in starting their own food enterprises, and seven of them have begun catering through our newest initiative. We plan to increase part- and full-time employment opportunities that will better support income-generation and professional catering skill set — and, despite language barriers, provide an opportunity for chefs to work in a flexible environment doing what they love.

We celebrate the accomplishments of Sanctuary Kitchen and the chefs in our first year! We plan to continue in this trajectory with food business incubation and larger commercial kitchen space, hoping to have an even greater impact in our community through this program in the future.

Thank you to all our volunteers, donors and partners!
International Association of New Haven, Tariq & Asma Farid Foundation, Guilford Savings Bank, IRIS – Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, Yale Refugee Project, Spring Glen Alliance for Refugee Resettlement, JCARR, Refugee and Immigrant Student Education, Ludwig Center for Community and Economic Development at Yale Law School, The Elmseed Enterprise Fund, New Haven Free Public Library, Collaboratory, Lawson Valentine Foundation, Yale School of Management, GreenLeaf-Catering

 

To find out more information about our Sanctuary Kitchen program, click here.

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