Photo courtesy of Eater LA: Making a pizza at Ronan on Melrose – Wonho Frank Lee
A new grant setup partners workers from LA non-profit Chrysalis with restaurants in need of staff, and all for a good cause
by: Farley Elliott
A new restaurant grant program in greater Los Angeles is aimed at helping to solve several different problems at once. The new initiative, engineered by Kitchen Culture Recruiting, will pay restaurants to provide meals to a particular group of in-need locals — anyone from first responders to the elderly to out of work hospitality employees — and give them the staff to do so, as part of a partnership with non-profit job placement and retention program Chrysalis.
Kristel Arabian, founder of Kitchen Culture Recruiting, tells Eater that the new grant program is funded entirely by an unnamed private donor who also does work in the fair chance hiring space, particularly where it overlaps with the restaurant industry (think hiring former unhoused people, veterans, the formerly incarcerated, etc.). The raised funds for this current program allow for two area restaurants to temporarily employ a pair of entry-level candidates from the Chrysalis system to work several eight-hour shifts helping to prepare food for whichever in-need local group the restaurant chooses.