Through The Kitchen Door's proven training method uses basic cooking and the culinary arts as a fun and non-threatening means to teach low income and recent immigrant adults and at-risk youth, basic life skills. These include: self-esteem, self-respect, organization and management, professionalism, nutrition and hygiene. We use and respect the culinary culture of trainees, and in the comfortable, secure environment of the kitchen create and expand pathways to education, empowerment and employment.

Through The Kitchen Door offers its basic and advanced training through partnerships with existing, high-quality non-profit service organizations already working with the target populations. In addition to providing direct training in the Metropolitan Washington DC area, Through The Kitchen Door provides training to organizations interested in establishing and offering Through The Kitchen Door© services within their own organizations.


THE ESSENTIAL KITCHEN 101™

We conduct the basic 15-hour adult course, The Essential Kitchen 101™, during a one-week period, ending with a graduation ceremony and reception for participants and invited guests. This course may be during the day or evening depending on the needs of the participants. Our easily accessible and adaptable courses attract culturally diverse participants and are taught in English and Spanish. The hands-on training techniques are also effective for people with developmental disabilities and those with limited literacy and language skills.

TEENS GET COOKING™

We generally offer this course over two weeks, four days per week as an after school program for middle and high school students. Designed to actively engage adolescents and teenagers, the training is focused on strengthening their abilities to make important and healthy choices. In the context of cooking classes, Through The Kitchen Door's® program addresses issues of self-esteem, self-confidence, study habits, self-image, diet and fitness, family relations, peer pressure and more.

EARNING WHILE LEARNING™

Earning While Learning&trade is Through The Kitchen Door's® experiential professional training program run as a non-profit catering enterprise. It is self-sustaining and funded by the sale of catering services prepared and staffed entirely by trainees and their teachers. Trainees learn to how to cook and serve fine, flavorful foods for receptions, dinners, lunches, weddings, other celebrations and large corporate and community events.
Through The Kitchen Door's® Earning While Learning&trade program teaches professional culinary skills in a low stress, culturally respectful environment. We keep our kitchen atmosphere supportive with an emphasis on the personal growth and development of our trainees, not bottom line profit. Earning While Learning&trade pays trainees as they quickly develop marketable job skills and their own small businesses. Learn more about Through The Kitchen Door catering services by clicking on this link.

Our Training Philosophy And Goals

Everyone connected with Through The Kitchen Door is required to take a basic course, including professional staff and volunteers. Teachers and assistant teachers are hired from the ranks of our trainees. To the greatest extent possible, we utilize donated or rented kitchens near the location of the participants' communities.

The objectives of the basic courses are to teach, demonstrate and instill qualities of confidence, self-esteem and motivation to women, men and youth who have had limited opportunities to participate in formal training programs. These courses teach essential culinary skills, sanitary practices and a series of recipes adaptable to the most basic kitchens and modest budgets.

The courses are taught by teachers who started out coming from the same backgrounds as the trainees, so the teachers themselves are examples of what can be accomplished. All training is hands-on and the basic course is essentially taught with no written materials. All graduates of the basic course receive a certificate of completion and a folio with the written recipes.

Class size is small; no more than 10 students per teacher in the adult classes. The teen program has a student to staff ratio of 1:3. All graduates of the basic course are eligible for more advanced and specialized workshops and other learning opportunities offered by Through The Kitchen Door.

We teach techniques, practices and core pedagogical messages through action and participation. This begins with instruction in selection and purchasing of ingredients; safe storage of foods; how to maintain quality of foods in storage; basic sanitary practices in the kitchen; the importance of good nutrition, etc.; the course uses the practice of working with specific basic recipes to convey the deeper messages of: organizing our lives, planning for the future, saving and budgeting time and resources and making healthy choices, among others.

The basic course culminates with a meal for invited guests which is completely prepared and served by the trainees. Once prepared and served, the trainees themselves are then treated to the meal and a graduation ceremony with the presentation of certificates, recipe folios and gifts.

Through The Kitchen Door, in all its courses and programs for non-professionals and professionals, practices an educational philosophy that includes:

  • treating all participants equally, respectfully and professionally in a relaxed and familiar setting,
  • providing hands-on experiential training not dependent on written materials,
  • and developing Through The Kitchen Door teachers from the ranks of trainees who have taken our courses and come from the same cultural, social and educational background as the students.

Our Partners

Through The Kitchen Door works collaboratively with area non-profit organizations, schools, government agencies and corporations to advance its training to those who can most benefit from our services. Our corporate community partner, Whole Foods Markets, contributes ingredients to our basic courses and public events where we participate and teach. Non-profit agency partners that provide services and refer clients for Through The Kitchen Door's basic courses in the Washington metropolitan area include:

Replication

Through The Kitchen Door's® programs and courses are ideal for replication by other non-profit organizations whose mission is empowerment of low-income and recent immigrant adults, women heads-of-households, adolescents and youth. We provide all written course materials, teacher's manuals and training necessary to enable other organizations to become Through The Kitchen Door affiliates. Please contact us for additional information.

For more information on upcoming training courses please e-mail info@kitchendoor.org or call, 202-829-8073.
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