The Portland-based organization Stone Soup hosts a twelve-week culinary training for individuals that have had significant employment barriers, including substance use disorders, gaps in work experience, lack access to resources, or other systemic obstacles. The program works to equip those participants with the skills the need to enter the food service industry.
The organization was founded in 2018, and its community kitchen program also provides meals to senior care communities, schools, mental health facilities and shelters. Some of those meals are cooked by those participating in the culinary training program, and some are cooked by Stone Soup staff.
We hear from the organization’s director, Ellen Damaschino, and one of the participants of the program, Mikey Barth, about the culinary training program, as well as the organization’s work to provide meals for people in the larger community.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed using AI and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. For seven years now, the Portland-based organization Stone Soup has hosted a culinary education training program for people with significant employment barriers. That could mean substance use disorder, big gaps in work experience, or other obstacles. The program aims to equip participants with skills they’ll need to enter the food service industry or other industries. The nonprofit’s community kitchen program also provides meals to senior care communities, schools, mental health facilities and shelters. Ellen Damaschino is the executive director of Stone Soup PDX. Mikey Barth took part in the culinary training program in the past. They both join me now. It’s great to have both of you on the show.
Ellen Damaschino: Thank you.
Mikey Barth: Hi, thank you.
Miller: Ellen, first, how did Stone Soup get started?
Damaschino: Stone Soup got started in 2019 by Craig and Ronit Gerard as a way to give back to the community. They both were in love with food and recognized the need for training in this hospitality industry here in Portland. So we started as, downtown we had a cafe, and a culinary training program, and we actually sold soup and had a little restaurant in the downtown area.
Miller: I think most people know the folk story of Stone Soup. What’s the connection between the name, or that story and the mission?
Damaschino: Yeah, our tagline is, “Everyone has enough to spare and share.” And that is really what the folk tale is about, that everybody contributes to something to feed people. And so that is the mission of Stone Soup, that we want to not only serve the community with meals, but we’re also training people to make those meals.
Miller: And it’s been that idea from the beginning, both giving food to people who need it and training people who are making that food so they can both make that food and have a career in the future?
Damaschino: Correct, a stable career. I think that’s really important.
Miller: So Mikey, what were you doing before you got involved with this training program?
Barth: I was really looking for an opportunity like that. Before I got into Stone Soup, I was recently off the street, homeless. I was getting my life together, getting sober. I just really wanted a job and I really wanted to start making something of myself. I wanted to start making some adult money, but it’s really hard when you have big gaps in your resume. It’s really hard when you have a substance abuse past because a lot of people prejudge. A lot of people don’t want to give opportunities to a resume that hasn’t had a job for five years, But Stone Soup, they didn’t care anything about that. They just were like, “Hey, come get some training, get some money,” and it was awesome.
Miller: Can you tell us what a day in the life of the training program was like for you, especially at the start?
Barth: It was really relaxed and open, and it was really friendly. The first day we started learning how to safely handle and use a knife. It was a really fun process.They offered us a lot of options like, whenever we were making something, they were always asking us, what do you wanna make this time? What do you wanna bake? When you make scones, what do you wanna put in the scones? It was a really cool program.
Miller: Did you have any of those skills before you started?
Barth: No. I watched a lot of Gordon Ramsay videos on YouTube, and that’s the extent of my skills. You know, I’ve always wanted to be a baker, but I didn’t know that I was lacking so many basic skills.
Miller: Ellen, how common is a training program like this in Oregon? I mean, there are cooking schools around the country, but what we’re talking about here, it seems there’s some overlap, but it actually seems really different.
Damaschino: It’s a workforce training program. You’re only in it for 12 weeks. We’re not a culinary school. We’re not gonna teach you how to sous vide things. We’re gonna teach you to get a job. So we offer not only those basic culinary skills, but we also offer how to write a resume, how to have a job interview, and we offer soft skills as well, like working together as a team, and how to show up on time. So it’s more than a culinary school. It is a training program for people to get into the workforce fast. And I say food service. That’s really what we’re looking at.
Miller: Food service. And why food service? I mean, this could be, I don’t know, moving people towards an apprenticeship in being electricians or plumbers or construction, there are a lot of fields that you could do work training in. This is about food service.
Damaschino: This is about food service, and there’s sometimes people who get out, they finish our program and say, “You know, I love it. I learned so much, and I don’t want to go into food.” We’ve still done a great job. We’ve given them 12 weeks of training, and that’s a good decision on their part as well.
So we offer that with the result of them going to food service. And I think food service is a larger arena in food and hospitality, so a lot of people think culinary equals restaurant. Well, there’s hospitals, there’s commissary kitchens, there’s retirement centers, assisted living facilities, those types of stable jobs where you can go to work every day and you’re going to get benefits, you’re gonna get a regular schedule. So we’re gearing our participants towards that end of food service.
Miller: Mikey, as Ellen was saying, it’s not just about knife skills and food safety. There’s also people skills, soft skills. What kinds of things did you get from your training, in addition to food-specific skills?
Barth: Well, really, Stone Soup offered a lot of foundation, and with good foundation, you really can really go anywhere. What I mean by that is, like, after graduating, they still have free lunches that you can just like go and show up and you eat and see people, but also while you’re there, you’re getting to know the people there and they’re getting to know you and they’re opening up themselves to you.
I made some personal connections with two people there, Matteo and Max, they really just got me and they became my friends while I was there, so it didn’t seem like I was coming and I was being surrounded by teachers. It was like I was being surrounded by people who just really want the best for me.
Miller: Ellen, how big a change have you noticed in people from week one to week twelve?
Damaschino: Wow, good thing it’s radio and you can’t see me getting teary eyed, but it is profound. By the time you get to graduation, everybody’s crying, because the stories that people tell, how they entered Stone Soup and how they leave Stone Soup, it’s life changing because we do provide that safe environment for them, and so many of our participants have been in unsafe environments. So, we’re giving them the skills, but we’re giving them the confidence. And oftentimes at graduation it’s the only diploma they’ll ever get.
Miller: The point of this is bringing in people who have significant barriers to employment. Do you have any barriers yourself to who can participate in the program?
Damaschino: We purposely keep our entrance low barrier. There’s two requirements. You must be over 18 and you must be housed. That’s it.
Miller: And what’s the reason for having to be housed?
Damaschino: We found in the past that people who came through the program that weren’t housed struggled more to complete the program, so we just made our kind of intake a little bit more stable, making sure they’re more stable when they get there so they can have success, because that’s ultimately what we want them to do.
Miller: Mikey, my understanding is you ended up getting a job at Elephant’s Delicatessen. What are you doing?
Barth: I am a production baker. I’m making a lot of focaccia for all the Elephant Restaurants in Portland. I’m making dinner rolls, hamburger buns, learning to make pastries. It’s really fun. I’ve never had a job like it before.
Miller: Could you have gotten that job without this program? ,
Barth: Probably with some blind luck, maybe. I don’t know. Really, Stone Soup led directly to Elephants in a lot of ways.
Miller: What’s your day-to-day job like at this point? So focaccia rolls, hamburger rolls, various things. So a lot of baking. What’s an average day like?
Barth: I show up at 6 a.m. I start mixing dough. We look at the catering for the day. We see if we have to prepare anything extra. Right now, for some reason, we need to make 3,000 extra biscuits for…
Miller: Literally, like right now?
Barth: Yeah, we need it done by Wednesday this week. But it’s really fun. It’s a lot of the same every day, but you never know what you’re gonna expect coming in.
Miller: Do you like baking bread?
Barth: Oh yeah, I love it.
Miller: Why?
Barth: It’s really fulfilling and you take it for granted. Like you don’t understand how much goes into just making a little portion of bread.
Miller: Ellen, obviously we have a success story here. How common are stories like Mikey’s? Someone who had challenges in the past, dealt with homelessness, substance use, and now is back to being employed in a job that he’s saying is fulfilling. How common is that among the people who take part in your 12-week program?
Damaschino: It’s more and more common for us. We’ve kind of got the formula down, now, so we have almost 70% of our graduates, after three months with us, are permanently employed, and that’s a really great number for us. I think we’ve honed in on what employers want from us.
We have to say, “Are we giving you the training that you need?” So we’ve done a lot more of that. We have an employment specialist now who’s actually placing people in jobs, so we’re really successful now and not just training people, but placing people in stable jobs.
Miller: It seems like what you’re saying, too, is that that’s evolved over the years, that you’ve gotten better at this. So what are the lessons that you’ve learned that you think could be applicable to other programs, like, what have you learned that’s made placement better, that’s made the program more effective?
Damaschino: I think there’s two things. As I said earlier, making sure that people are pretty stable when they come in, because we want them to make it through that 12 weeks. The final four weeks are like an apprentice program. You’re either making food for the cafe or you’re producing those 2,100 meals that we put out a week. So they’re getting practical training at the end. And that really helps with the resume building because they’ve done what they said they were going to do. They just didn’t go to school. So that’s been helpful, and having an employment specialist and connecting in the community to find out what the community needs from us.
Miller: Do you provide wraparound services to the people who are taking part?
Damaschino: Yes, we have a full-time support services coordinator. When you arrive at Stone Soup, if you need non-slip shoes for the kitchen, or pants, or a Hop pass, if you need to apply for SNAP benefits, if you need rental assistance, we have a support service coordinator that will help you with all of that because that is to help you stay in our program through those 12 weeks.
Miller: You know, we’ve been focusing on the production of the food and the training program, but where does all this food go? Who are you, today, providing food for?
Damaschino: We’re providing food for shelters, adult daycare or adult facilities, drop-in day centers for low-income seniors. Also mental health facilities, small tiny villages, so people that are living the experience at places where our participants come from is actually who we’re making food for.
Miller: And is that literally the case sometimes? Have you had people that you’ve made food for, and then they’ve gotten out of the shelter, they’ve gotten back to being housed, and then they take part in the program?
Damaschino: Yes, and they’ll say, “Oh, I had your food while I was in the shelter!”
Miller: “And now I’m making it.”
Damaschino: Yes.
Miller: Have you seen an increase in need since the provisions of H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” that we’ve talked about a fair amount over the last year or so, since they’ve really been kicking in. I’m thinking about, you mentioned SNAP, that’s a big one, where now there are more strict employment verification rules, for example. What have you been noticing in terms of hunger and need?
Damaschino: So, 82% of our participants are on SNAP, a very high percentage. More and more of our participants come in early. We feed them breakfast. They get a hot lunch every day. So we are alleviating those meals that they may need to buy.
Miller: To be clear, you’re talking here, not about the recipients of the food, but the people who are in the training program, the participants in the training program?
Damaschino: Yes, the need is higher than ever for the participants and the numbers have gone up also in our community meals. We’re now at 2,100, where we were at 17 last year. So we’ve seen it on both ends.
Miller: Mikey, what are your hopes for your career going forward?
Barth: I just hope that I can remain stable in the job that I enjoy doing. I’ve mentioned Matteo before. Matteo is an interviewer coordinator with us…
Damaschino: Support services coordinator.
Barth: Support services coordinator. Ever since I got into the program and met Matteo, they emailed me every now and then to check to see how I’m doing. They asked me if I’ve started doing more drag. They always pushed me to do creative things, even outside of cooking and culinary. It’s really awesome.
Miller: Mikey and Ellen, thanks very much.
Damaschino: Thank you for having us today.
Miller: Mikey Barth is a former participant in Stone Soup PDX. Ellen Damaschino is the executive director of the Portland nonprofit.
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