In 1981, Vincent Clayton, senior class president at Camden High School, turned down a scholarship to a state university. Instead he descended into drug dealing, for which he eventually spent eight years in jail. But last May he was again at the top of his class, giving the valedictory speech before he and his fellow graduates headed into the world to pursue new careers as chefs.
Clayton, a 47-year-old father of two, was living in a halfway house when he heard about the Culinary Arts Training Institute being started by Camden’s venerable Cathedral Kitchen, which feeds about 300 hungry souls a night. He and nineteen other disadvantaged applicants were chosen to participate in the inaugural program.
The idea for a cooking school arose out of Cathedral Kitchen’s construction of a new state-of-the-art facility that opened on Federal Street last November. “We were building a place that had a commercial kitchen,” says Karen Talarico, executive director of Cathedral Kitchen. “What better way to use it than have a culinary institute?” Talarico and program manager Rita Cinelli modelled the institute, funded by corporate donations, on similar ones in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New Brunswick.
Classes began in February; in May, eighteen of the twenty students graduated. (A second group of 21 tied on their aprons in August.) Executive chef Jonathan Jernigan, plus a rotating cast of guest chefs, taught the students how to season meat, clean shellfish, bake bread, wield cleavers, and perform other basic tasks.
“They all acquitted themselves well, but once you got them in the kitchen, you could really see who had the talent,” says Jernigan, who previously mentored The Next Food Network Star winner and Camden native Aaron McCargo Jr. of Big Daddy’s House.
Cinelli estimates that a similar program at a commercial cooking school would cost $16,000 per student. But this one also taught life skills, such as balancing budgets and properly comporting oneself during a job interview. Cinelli used her business connections to find each student a two-week internship. All but three of the graduates wound up with jobs at restaurants in South Jersey.
Evelyn Lewis, 30, who was living in a homeless shelter in Camden when she joined the inaugural class, was hired as pantry chef at the Telford Inn (she has since moved on). She developed salads and desserts for the Mantua restaurant—an opportunity she said she never would have had if not for the culinary institute.
“I was exhausted and broke down, and they’d take me aside and ask me, ‘What’s going on?’” said Lewis, who almost dropped out of the program midway. Referring to the institute, she added, “It was like I got parents when I came here.”
Clayton, the valedictorian, for awhile worked the line at the Pop Shop, a ’50s retro restaurant in Collingswood. Having mastered the salads and fries station, he began training on the grill. “It’s rewarding,” said Pop Shop co-owner Bill Fisher. “Here’s this guy with a tripped-up past, and he gets another chance. If we’re able to help with that, it makes me feel good.”
For Clayton, it has meant not only a new career but a new relationship with his wife, their twin daughters, and all who know him.
“I have so much respect now at home and in the community,” he said. He has helped out at Cathedral’s soup kitchen, which keeps him in touch with many of his old acquaintances. “When I see these guys, they’re really happy for me,” he said. “Maybe they see that something like this can work—like, ‘If Vince can change, maybe I can, too.’”