DC Central Kitchen began its first phase of operations in January 1989, and was founded on the premise that when fighting poverty, one wins by using every resource available. Since its inception, DC Central Kitchen has trained and employed hundreds of homeless men and women for the foodservice industry while recovering unused food and preparing and delivering more than 4,000 nutritious meals daily to partner social-service agencies in the greater Washington, D.C., region.

Vogler will present at this year’s CAFÉ Leadership Conference in Baltimore, June 25-27. The Gold Medal Classroom interviewed Vogler to give readers a taste of her work and the contributions of DC Central Kitchen to the local foodservice industry and greater society.

GMC: You taught school for 13 years. What did you teach, and to whom?

Vogler: I taught junior-high English in Alabama for three years, then fourth grade at a Catholic school for 10 years in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

GMC: After receiving an associate degree in culinary arts in 1985, you started a catering business in Myrtle Beach and worked in resort dining. Why did you change careers?

Vogler: My mother and grandmother were extraordinary cooks, so the love of good food is in my DNA. Since great cooking was my “normal,” I never thought of my culinary skills as exceptional until people outside the family commented on it. I had not thought of cooking for a living until encouraged by friends to sell my cheesecakes. Calling up courage I didn’t know I had, I knocked on restaurant doors in Myrtle Beach with cheesecake samples, and the next thing I knew, I was in business. Eventually the staying up all night baking cheesecakes in my home oven and delivering all day got to be a little much for me and my family. I decided to enroll at Horry Georgetown Technical College in Conway, S.C. I loved every second of culinary school, and my love of food and the food industry has never wavered. That experience came full circle when I was fortunate to teach there for a semester in 2007.

GMC: In 1998, you founded a nonprofit culinary-arts job-training program. Why? Does it still operate?

Vogler: I was serving on the board of directors of the Community Food Rescue in Charlotte, a nonprofit that rescued food from food establishments and delivered it to agencies serving the hungry. The leaders of the Community Food Rescue and Friendship Trays (a Meals on Wheels program) heard of DC Central Kitchen in Washington and an exciting and innovative initiative that was sprouting up in cities all over the country. The idea was to use donated food, teach people with barriers to employment to cook, and use the meals to feed the hungry in the community. They asked me to help with the search for a chef to get the program started. I had been at Presbyterian Hospital for 10 years, and was beginning to see the need for change on the horizon. When I heard about this exciting new idea, I knew that I was supposed to do this. I founded the Community Culinary School of Charlotte (CCSC) modeled after DC Central Kitchen. CCSC partnered with Community Food Rescue and Friendship Trays to form a hunger-fighting trio in the Charlotte area. As other agencies across the country jumped on the culinary job-training wagon, a network was formed named Kitchen, INC (Kitchens in National Corporation). At one point there were almost 80 such places; many are still active. CCSC was the first to offer a night school as well as the day school and was named Best National Training Program. CCSC still thrives in its 12^th year and continues to change lives in Charlotte.

GMC: You accepted the position of culinary-arts coordinator at DC Central Kitchen in 2006. What is your role, and what constitutes your team?

Vogler: The program covers all facets of work in a professional kitchen and includes hands-on training taught by an ACF culinary coordinator. Local chefs volunteer once a week to teach specific skills. Additionally, the students enjoy visiting local foodservice establishments on a weekly basis.

In addition to culinary skills, the students all complete the ServSafe Food Protection Manager’s Certification Course. Training is enhanced by events such as catering, showcase lunches and dinners. As often as possible, the classes are taken to outside venues for experience in other, better-equipped commercial kitchens.

Throughout the training students have a wide array of services and support to help them deal with the mammoth issues that life has brought them. Each morning the students are required to attend self-empowerment classes, a valuable and necessary step toward recovery as they courageously work at becoming “strong at the broken places” and begin to mend their lives. These sessions are often met with reluctance and some resentment, but in the end, few question their value.

A workforce-development coordinator teaches the importance of job readiness. Students are well prepared to interview, and most are employed by graduation. All have ongoing resources from DC Central Kitchen well after they leave the program. The team is lead by a director who is also a professional chef with 13 years’ experience at DC Central Kitchen and a unique and effective understanding of the population served. The icing on the training cake is the almost 80 employees of DC Central Kitchen who are cheerleaders for the students. Training is supplemented by all the kitchen staff at DC Central Kitchen who help students as they learn their skills. This is the village it takes to empower our students.

GMC: How does the foodservice industry react to graduates of DC Central Kitchen’s culinary-arts program?

Vogler: For the most part, our students are embraced fully. DC Central Kitchen enjoys 21 years of success in all areas of the kitchen and our services. This July, we will have our 80^th job-training class. Class 79, which graduated in April, had 100% employment before graduation! Most chefs and restaurateurs are excited to partner with us in volunteering, internships and employment.

GMC: What jobs do graduates of DC Central Kitchen obtain? Do they work in the immediate area?

Vogler: Our graduates work in just about every arena of the foodservice industry: restaurants, catering, hospitals, schools, area museums and embassies. One of the largest employers of graduates is DC Central Kitchen, where our graduates are hired to work production, catering and contract food sales. They tend to stay in the area of D.C., Maryland and Virginia, since part of our mission is to provide skilled staff for local foodservice businesses.

GMC: What is the biggest challenge you face at DC Central Kitchen?

Vogler: The challenge for the students’ personal success is that, though they are protected, nurtured and supported here at DCCK, life on the streets is a persistent seductress. The challenges to the training program are many, as well. Instructor-to-student ratio is 1 to 25. DCCK is located in the basement of the largest homeless shelter in the country. In this environment, 4,500 meals are prepared daily to go out to area hungry, making distractions to training difficult to overcome. In addition to the crowded space, the equipment is old, and in the case of grills, combi ovens and large dish machines, simply non-existent. The class crowds into a small space each afternoon from 1:00 until 4:00 to try to learn to chop, blend and sizzle their way to a culinary career.

GMC: What is your greatest success story at DC Central Kitchen?

Vogler: It is impossible to determine a single success story. In the 78 classes, people have gone from homelessness and despair to productive and fulfilling lives. Those who now have financial and spiritual health number in the hundreds. People who were once incarcerated are now tax-paying citizens; many are homeowners. Children now model the work ethics of their parents. Grandmothers who were raising their children's children are unburdened. In several classes, we have seen men in their 50s and 60s whose entire adult lives were spent in prison. It is an awesome thing to witness these men gain employment and lead a successful existence.

Often, the completion of our program is the first thing many of our students have ever finished. We see families that long ago gave up on someone reunite at our graduations. Needless to say, tissues and handkerchiefs abound at graduation ceremonies!

GMC: What’s next for Linda Vogler?

Vogler: I will be the lead once again for the Arlington training program under the guidance of Marianne Ali, the director of the DCCK program. My goal is to continue to train the population I love in the culinary arts, wherever that may be. I fully expect that my dying words will be something like: “Good mise en place is critical to success.”

Editor’s note: Don’t miss Vogler’s general-session presentation at CAFÉ’s 6^th-Annual Leadership Conference, Saturday morning, June 26, at Baltimore International College’s Bay Atlantic Club. For more information on DC Central Kitchen, visit www.dccentralkitchen.org. To register for CAFÉ’s Leadership Conference, click the CAFÉ Events tab at www.CAFEMeetingPlace.com.

Photo caption: (l to r) Linda Vogler, culinary-arts coordinator at DC Central Kitchen, receives Women Chefs & Restaurateurs’ 2009 Community Service Award from Alejandro Buvinic, trade commissioner of award sponsor ProChile at WCR’s 2009 national conference in Washington, D.C., last November. (Photo credit: Reflections Photography Inc.)