“Around the Corner” is a PhillyCAM show that offers local social impact leaders the opportunity to share what impact their work is having on the Philadelphia area. 

Understatement: Formerly incarcerated individuals can have a tough time finding employment upon their return to society.

Enter Philabundance Community Kitchen, a culinary arts and meal production job training program designed for low-income adults and returning citizens who are trying to rebuild their lives while also alleviating hunger within their communities.

“Our program seeks to address the [returning citizen] community specifically: What have been those patterns resulting in them ending back into prison?” said Candace Matthews-Bass, Philabundance’s director of personal resource development and training. “[We’re also] doing our best to work closely with providers throughout the Philadelphia area, those who are advocating for rights on behalf of returning citizens.”

Community Kitchen provides free 14-week long culinary classes to enrolled students, who spend half of their days in active training and the second half of their days studying and doing homework.

The program has served just under 800 students since it has been running with about 80 percent of students directly placed in a job after their two-week-long internships. After the first two years, 70 percent of the students stay employed.

Learn more about Philabundance’s Community Kitchen in Matthews-Bass’s “Around the Corner” interview below.

PhillyCAM is Comcast channel 66/966 HD/967 and Verizon FIOS channel 29/30 in Philadelphia.