Jack Hanna
You would expect FoodWorks, a non-profit business teaching job skills to youth, to change the lives of street kids. After all, that’s the whole point.
But the Centretown social enterprise has also given a senior Ottawa chef a new direction in life.
Before COVID-19, Tim Stock had a good – and conventional – career as executive chef at Thyme and Again, a top-flight takeout and catering service in Ottawa. Then the pandemic hit and he was laid off.
Within months, he landed at Operation Come Home, which provides a variety of services in Centretown for at-risk youth. Initially, Stock prepared breakfasts at the youth drop-in centre on Gloucester Street between Bank and O’Connor. However, last month his role expanded and he relaunched FoodWorks, a takeout and catering service providing training for youth.
And now, Stock says he won’t be looking back. “I absolutely love it. I don’t think I will ever go back to restaurants.”
FoodWorks, an offshoot of Operation Come Home, has been imparting job skills to at-risk teenagers for half a decade, operating as a catering service for corporate lunches and conferences. A year ago, FoodWorks shut down because of COVID-19.
When it reopened last month, there was no demand for catering, so FoodWorks pivoted to providing frozen takeout meals.
Customers order online at the FoodWorks website and pick up frozen meals at the takeout window of the FoodWorks kitchen at 571 Gladstone Avenue, just east of the McNabb Arena. The most popular items are lasagna, turkey and vegetarian pot pies and biryana, a chicken curry.
Stock divides his time between running FoodWorks and preparing breakfasts at the youth drop-in centre. “This is a big change for me, a career change,” he says. “When you are a chef, you are passionate about preparing fine food and being creative, but you really are doing it for yourself.”
There are compliments from patrons and online reviews. His central concern tends to be, “What do people think of me as a chef?” Now Stock says, those preoccupations seem “superficial and meaningless.” Cooking for and working with at risk-youth bring a more profound reward. “Everything we do here is for at-risk youth. There is a lot more purpose. Here, if I didn’t cook for them, someone might not eat. My work is appreciated in a whole different way.”
At least once a week, the master chef prepares individual omelets at the youth drop-in centre. It is a new experience for the youth and for the chef. “No one has ever taken the time to care for them enough to make them a meal that is very well prepared.” And as a result, Stock says, “my work has a lot more meaning.”
FoodWorks aims to give youth “skills that will help them find stable work,” Stock says, “and a passion and enjoyment in what they are doing.”
Training youth
Thaden Coltess currently is training with Stock. “It is really fun,” the 17-year-old says. “I like cooking. I finally have something to do and it feels good doing it.”
For Coltess, growing up did not go smoothly. “I had a rough childhood and CAS was in my life pretty much all of my life.”
He has lived in shelters and a group home. For a couple of years, he bounced in and out of his mother’s house, crashed with friends and spent a lot of time playing computer games. Now he is mastering cooking skills and earning a wage. His training has included first-aid and food safety courses and Smart Serve training for bar staff.
Beside working at FoodWorks, Coltess attends high school and has an apartment, and a savings account. As for the future, he hopes to do a bit of travelling, perhaps to Hawaii, and to get additional training as a cook “so I can do more things.”
And, just like his mentor chef Stock, he takes satisfaction in working in a helping vocation. “It’s nice to cook for people who really need it.”
To place a takeout order go to: www.foodworksottawa.ca/