Through our network partners, Catalyst Kitchens and Feeding America, we have identified over 100 community kitchens across the country dedicated to improving lives and strengthening communities through culinary training. These programs offer individuals free culinary and life skills training that leads to increased confidence, better health and more employment opportunities. Our goal is to discover every organization that does this work and to create a community that shares best practices and effective curricula.
Our Support for Community Kitchens
The Jacques Pépin Foundation supports culinary arts education and training. Our mission is in part realized by supporting non-profit, community-based, culinary arts training programs that offer life skills and culinary training to adults with high barriers to employment.
With over $100K available, our 2020 grant program represents our next level effort to advance culinary training through CBCATs. This request for proposals (RFP) is for existing CBCATs who are raising capital to formalize their culinary training program, join a community kitchen network, improve facilities, expand their programming, or in other ways directly improve their teaching. We are accepting bids for $5,000 - $10,000 grants. An interactive map listing of organizations that have previously received our support can be found at the top of this page.
Our goal is to raise visibility and support for community kitchens across the country. In 2019, we will initiate a program offering $10K grants to at least 10 different community kitchens. In addition, our efforts include
The JPF shares content from Jacques’ rich legacy of cookbooks and videos with community kitchens to be used as training materials or part of a lending library.
In 2018, the Foundation proudly distributed books and videos to over 20 community-based culinary arts training programs. Highlighting Jacques’ firm belief that learning culinary technique is an essential ingredient for success, the multimedia care packages included two technique-driven cookbooks, an accompanying educational DVD, Pépin’s autobiography and a copy of “The Art of the Craft”, an American Masters documentary film about Pépin.
In 2019, the JPF will continue this distribution and in addition will work to create a consolidated library of Jacques’ videos and a catalog of demonstrated techniques to be utilized in community kitchen curricula across the country.
OXO provided 20 community-based culinary arts training programs each with $500 worth of their universal design tools, including peelers, gloves, can openers, whisks, mixing bowl sets and knives. OXO has anniversaried this commitment for an additional 10K in 2019. Thank you to OXO for being one of our valued industry partners!
Jacques and other JPF team members volunteer their time in community kitchens providing professional training to students. We also connect professional chefs who want to volunteer to community kitchens in their area.
Postponed to May 2021 — Our tribute to Barbara Fenzl of Les Gourmettes Cooking School, now to be held in May 2021, will be a star-studded evening with Master of Ceremonies Chef Jacques Pépin, Mark Tarbell, Claudine Pépin and Rollie Wesen, at the Mountain Shadows Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. Proceeds will benefit the […]
We are deeply disappointed that the current health crisis demanded that we cancel our principle annual fund-raiser. As in past years, it would have been a glorious evening of fraternity, camaraderie, and support for culinary training and the industry we love. Friends including Rachel Ray, Jose Andres, Andrew Zimmern, Carla hall, Ming Tsai, Gail Simmons, Tom Colicchio, Patrick O’Connell, Sara Moulton, Justin Chapple and many more were slated to help us celebrate the work of the JPF. We hope to see them all next year on April 8, 2021.
On October 13, the JPF was proud to support, through the Jacques Pepin Legacy Fund, the installation of a bronze statue of Jacques on Stone Acres Farm, in Stonington, CT. The bust was created by internationally renowned Zenos Frudakis, mounted on pink Stony Creek, CT granite and accompanied by casts of Jacques’ hands, and a […]