A Hartford social enterprise job training program reintroduces itself. ‘It transforms lives’

HARTFORD – A social enterprise job readiness training program that gives a hand up to high-risk individuals is reintroducing itself to residents and businesses in Greater Hartford.

The Chrysalis Center’s La Cocina Culinary Arts Training Program was first established right before the COVID-19 pandemic to provide training for high-risk young adults and adults with mental health diagnoses, educational limits, criminal records, or addictions that could prevent them from obtaining employment, according to the organization.

The program provides hands-on job training skills for catering and provides clients with wrap-around services and support with a five-star chef and case manager, according to the organization.

Through the center’s La Cocina Catering, which is a licensed on- and off-site caterer that offers a various food options and has a socially conscious mission, the funds generated through the catering and rental of the organization’s Training and Conference Center, are used to help the organization’s mission of ending hunger in North Harford, while reducing poverty through employment training.

Chrysalis Center’s CEO Sharon L. Castelli said those who support the program are helping the organization to transform lives.

“The mission here is really to help people get jobs in the community. We do that today in this social enterprise where we’ll take people that come in that maybe need a hand, we’ll get them back on their feet. They go through the culinary training, they get their ServSafe certificate, they can then take that into the hospitality world, as well as the food industry world,” she said.

As an example of a success story that illustrates the success of the La Cocina Culinary Arts Training Program, Castelli mentioned a former student who came into the program eight years ago.

She said the student had his first mental health crisis when he was 18 and in college. Over the next year, he was hospitalized 10 times while in college out-of-state and ultimately had to drop out of school, she said.

The student’s Connecticut family was able to provide him quality care for his mental health issues, however, but he turned to drugs and alcohol to manage his anxiety and depression, she said.

The man was ultimately charged with stealing a car while he was high and using substances due to his mental health issues, she said. When he was released from prison, he was referred to Chrysalis Center and went through the La Cocina Culinary Arts Training program, she said.

The man successfully completed the program, graduated with a ServSafe certificate, and now has has been promoted twice at his job, she said. He also has his own apartment and car.

“That’s what this great organization does, it transforms lives. We do that by every event that we have here at the Training and Conference Center, we call it the TCC,” she said. “When you are catering an event here or at your business, all of the money raised comes back to our mission to be able to provide training and support for the clients that we serve. We are a statewide organization. We serve about 1,200 to 1,250 clients each year throughout the state of Connecticut. This is our main home. This is our main office, this is where the magic happens.”

Board of Directors Secretary Carol Larco-Murzyn, a long serving member, said she has dedicated time investing in clients because it works.

“They need a helping hand. They don’t need a handout, they need a hand up. They need some help. And what I love about this organization is that it’s a partnership. We partner together,” she said. “The clients have to work with client managers, they have to develop their plans, and commit to what they’re going to do to also help themselves. We’ll help them, we’ll get them in touch with people.”

Larco-Murzyn said she also likes that the organization and program use a partnership model when working with clients.

“We’re going to provide a piece and you’re going to provide a piece,” she said, noting she encourages anyone who wants to give to the program and organization to do so, as a way of sharing.

“It’s always about seeing abundance in our lives. When you see your life is abundant, then you also can share that abundance. So that’s kind of my personal philosophy. Giving advice to someone who wants to give, come down here and see what good happens on a daily basis, investigate,” she said.

“If you think you might want to give, then come and look and see where your money’s going and see how much of the money is invested back into the community. We’re strengthening families, we’re strengthening individuals and the communities. So it’s always a good feeling when you can share what you have with someone else.”

Larco-Murzyn said the hands-on experience that clients receive in the Culinary Arts Training Program includes working with the chef in the morning to begin preparing three meals a day for individuals who are coming out of incarceration, along with preparing food for catering job assignments.

After all the culinary work for the day, clients go to the Recovery and Empowerment Center to meet with a proctor to learn what need to know for the written portion of the test to receive the ServSafe license, she said.

“It is a two part thing, you have to know the food. And you also have to know the book work part. So and then after six to eight weeks, they come back, they actually take a ServSafe test here, and…they get their ServSafe license,” she said.

Larco-Murzyn said the organization made a connection with Max’s Restaurant, which agreed to take graduates with their ServSafe license and place them in the back of their kitchens.

She said restaurants are struggling to find employees and clients “might have to start as a dishwasher or prep cook,” but they have a job.” There also might be more opportunity for the graduates in the hospitality industry, due to the need for workers, she said.

Executive Assistant Lynda Waldron said that the organization also has partnered with others who are willing to employ individuals who have come out of incarceration.

Larco-Murzyn said that the organization also is preparing to include an additional hospitality component.

“And now we’re going to teach you the front end of the business, how to greet customers, how to book an event…so that you can go into a restaurant and maybe do a server if you wanted to,” she said.