Community Outreach
We believe food has the power to bring people together and create positive change.
Founded by Olivier David Said (Chef Olive) with co-owner Lisa Miller, Kitchen on Fire has a heart and soul that reaches far beyond its kitchen doors. Giving back to our community fuels our vitality and best of all, giving back is always in season.
A passion for providing culinary and nutritional education, regardless of social situations, drives us to reach out to those most in need. Though we host educational, culinary adventures at our Berkeley based kitchens, you’ll also find us in the community teaching those less fortunate how to feed themselves, their families, and even forge a culinary career.
Our customers’ continued support of Kitchen on Fire goes a long way. We thank you for contributing your culinary dollars to our school, and making it possible to continually change our customers’ lives as well as those less fortunate in our community.
bread project
The Bread Project leverages the power of social enterprise with training, job placement assistance and support services to help fight poverty. Their award-winning Bakery Boot Camp has consistently delivered industry leading outcomes. Kitchen on Fire worked with The Bread Project for five years, and still steps in when they need us.
Bread Project Bakery Boot Camp results:
- 30 days to find a job post training
- 89% job placement rate post graduation
- 96% job retention rate (90 days)
- $14.20 hourly wage (~30% above min. wage)
saint vincent de paul
Chef Olive with Kitchen on Fire has been part of the Kitchen of Champions program since its creation in 2007, with nine years of hands-on teaching, and is still available when SVdP needs him.
SVdP provides job training and professional support to individuals from low-income, re-entry and at-risk populations who face barriers to employment.
St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County’s Kitchen of Champions culinary training program is an intensive, comprehensive 12-week session for low-income and disenfranchised individuals, many of whom are formerly incarcerated.
Kitchen of Champions uses a combination of classroom instruction and hands-on kitchen food handling safety technique, along with case management, job placement assistance and follow-up services for graduates. As part of their training the candidates are feeding more than 700 people a day, most of these people are homeless.
SVdP graduates have been successfully employed by Brown Sugar Kitchen, Everett & Jones, Google Inc., Kitchen on Fire, Ms. Ollie’s, Preferred Freezer, Roli Roti, Sears Outlet, and the Waterfront Hotel.
St. Vincent de Paul: Kitchen of Champions
oakland unified School district
Kitchen on Fire helped train 60 chefs from the Oakland Unified School District at our kitchen.
Chefs Olive and Rick Beeman conducted hands-on lessons on knife and kitchen skills as the district’s cooks and managers were introduced to new California Thursdays recipes developed with the help of the Center for Ecoliteracy.
feeding the 5,000 in oakland
It turns out that there is such a thing as a “free lunch”. On Saturday, October 18th Oakland residents convened in Frank Ogawa Plaza to feast on vegetable soup, smoothies, and bread for free as part of an event called Feeding the 5,000. Organized primarily by EndFoodWaste.org, with help from Feedback – a non profit organization whose aim is to end food waste and hunger – the event was the first of its kind in the United States and not only fed attendees but inspired everyone to think differently about food.
“A third of the world’s food is wasted, which is an environmental and social disaster,” said Tristram Stuart, founder of Feedback. That’s why organizers and volunteers worked tirelessly to rescue perfectly acceptable food that would have otherwise been destined for trash cans or compost bins.
For this event, 2,000 pounds of sweet potatoes, carrots and onions, and 1,000 pounds of fruit were salvaged from farms in the San Joaquin Delta and Salinas Valley, as well as from wholesalers and distributors in San Francisco and Alameda Counties. In addition to the lunch, over 9,000 pounds of produce, also rescued, were given out for free during the event!
