If you’ve ever visited Kindred Kitchen on Broadway to grab coffee and a pastry or lunch, you may know that many of those behind the counter and in the kitchen are in training. The demand for food service workers is at an all-time high in Snohomish County, but HopeWorks Social Enterprise’s training spots are limited by our current square footage. This spring, we launched a Capital Campaign to fund a build-out of the unfinished space at HopeWorks Station, the first building in Everett to achieve LEED®️ Platinum certification and home for our job training programs including Kindred Kitchen. The goal is to equip a Culinary Training Academy that, when completed, will house a state-of-the-art commercial kitchen where our culinary arts trainees will gain the complex skills necessary to work in a high-volume kitchen while providing meals for our families, community customers and for Kindred Kitchen.
This facility will enable us to add three new job training pathways, while also increasing the number of trainees we can serve at one time. Graduates will emerge with key skills for the many high-demand jobs in food service that are open in Snohomish County: banquet preparation and serving, large scale catering and meal kit production, and providing USDA compliant meals for school cafeterias.
In addition to the kitchen area, there will be a community gathering space on the street side of the building, full of light from the large windows. We are working with Dykeman Architects to create a welcoming environment for your next meeting or presentation—with catering provided by our graduates! Look for an email outlining ways you can contribute to realizing this vision.