Jonah's* Story at Forge City Works
Forge City Works serves people in the Hartford community who have barriers to employment by providing job training in the food and hospitality industry to help them achieve sustainable careers.
Jonah loved to cook for his dad growing up. He would make meals for him to take to work, often getting creative because his dad tended to be picky. “I already liked culinary…I found out about Forge City Works. I wanted to have some type of continued education after I dropped out of college,” he says, so he decided to apply for their job training program.
At Forge City Works, Jonah learned the inner workings of the restaurant and catering businesses that Forge City Works operates as social enterprises so that the participants of its job training program can gain real-world work experience while developing the soft and hard skills they need to succeed in the workforce. He participated in kitchen labs, shadowed every kind of work shift, and ultimately worked as an intern in the catering business, earning certifications to support his career growth all along the way. Through his internship, Jonah found his path forward after his setback with college. “I want to have my own catering business and hopefully a personal chef business in the future,” he says.
In reflecting on everything he’s learned at Forge City Works to help him turn his dream into reality, Jonah says, “I see everything that goes into it, now. I know how to do inventory. I have customer service skills from working the front of the house. I never thought I would be able to expand my knowledge in that. I know how to handle cash, work with point-of-sale systems… I understand how the food reaches the table, and how it goes through multiple chains of command, how to make it all work.”
Forge City Works helped Jonah to attain the necessary certifications to put him on his path forward too. “I have my food handling license, Food Allergy Certification, ServSafe Alcohol Certificate. Now, I’m studying to try to get my ServSafe Manager Certification too because I want to go all the way.”
Before coming to Forge City Works, Jonah wasn’t sure what path he should chart, and he didn’t have a support system. At Forge City Works, Jonah found, “there are a lot of people that support you there, but they also push you to want to do better.”
*This story uses a pseudonym.