FareStart
 |
The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guidelines for companies and organizations. Please help to establish notability by adding reliable, secondary sources about the topic. If notability cannot be established, the article is likely to be merged, redirected, or deleted. (February 2011) |
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2011) |
FareStart is a non-profit, social entrepreneurial organization in Seattle, Washington, USA, that operates a unique job placement and training program benefiting homeless and disadvantaged men, women, and youth. FareStart was started as a business that delivered nutritious meals to homeless shelters, but its founder, David Lee, then realized that, if they trained their clients to help prepare the food, it would give them the job skills they would need to find employment and stable housing. FareStart reports that 80% of graduates find jobs within 90 days of graduation.
As of January 2007, the main FareStart Restaurant and the FareStart administrative offices moved from its longtime location Downtown Seattle just east of the Pike Place Market, to its brand new home at Seventh & Virginia Avenues.
The FareStart Restaurant serves lunch Monday through Friday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Every Thursday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m is the famous Guest Chef Night, which features a special three-course dinner, prepared by students under the supervision of a "guest chef"--a noted Seattle chef from another restaurant that volunteers his or her services to support the cause. Chefs have come from as far as the Rosario Resort on Orcas Island, but most are from some of the best known restaurants in Seattle and King County, including Ray's Boathouse, Sky City at the Space Needle, Salty's on Alki, Elliott's Oyster House, and the Metropolitan Grill.
All revenue and gratuities from the restaurant directly supports the job training and placement program. The sixteen week hands-on training program includes a combination of culinary and life skills classes, preparing graduates to for jobs and self-sufficiency.
The FareStart Café in the Rainier Valley serves as on-the-job training site for youth enrolled in the Barista Training and Education Program, a collaborative effort between YouthCare and FareStart.
All net profit generated by café goes directly toward our student training programs, as do all net profits from all FareStart businesses. Customers of the FareStart Café support the organization through their patronage, while also providing critical on-the-job experience for FareStart students. FareStart Café at 2100 opened on June 21, 2004 inside the 2100 Building, located at 2100 24 th Ave. South (Rainier Valley). The Café serves both the public and the non-profit tenants of the building, including Treehouse, which provides enrichment and educational services to foster children, The Mockingbird Society, Youth In Focus, Washington Women's Foundation and Northwest Children's Fund.
In addition to the food preparation training, FareStart also provides job placement assistance, help finding housing if the student is not already staying at a homeless shelter, and continues working with the students after they start their new job to help them keep it.
FareStart also provides catering services, and the FareStart Restaurant is available for dinners, business meetings, and celebrations.
The FareStart Board and community recently began a movement to create a national network to enable best practice sharing among like social entrepeneruial, food-based life skills training nationwide. As part of this effort, the organization previously known as Kitchens with Missions was integrated into FareStart.[1]
