If you are ever at Little Jaye, a bakery in South Park in the morning, you just might meet Damian (he/him), a FareStart Food Pathways Program graduate and lifelong cook. But it was not a direct path to the kitchen for Damian.
Like many people who love to cook, Damian’s passion started at home.
Growing up, Damian spent time in the kitchen with his uncle, a longtime cook who helped spark his interest in food. “My first dish I helped him make was fettuccine Alfredo.”
Damian always knew he wanted to work in the culinary industry. However, getting there would take longer than he expected.
Although Damian learned about FareStart in 2013 through a probation officer, repeated incarceration and struggles with addiction prevented him from enrolling. After his release from prison in 2020, he began working toward recovery and rebuilding his life.
By 2025, he was focused on achieving a longtime goal: joining FareStart’s Food Pathways Program. Legal challenges delayed his enrollment for nearly another year, but once he resolved those, he was finally in.
After years of setbacks, Damian was finally where he had hoped to be all along: in a professional kitchen learning the skills needed for a culinary career. “I got a lot of tools. Going into a kitchen, knowing what to do with sanitization, knowing that I have to be organized, learning prep lists, and understanding recipes. Having that knowledge has really helped me since I’ve been working.”
During the program, Damian and his fellow students created a Cuban-inspired menu for their capstone project, giving him the chance to apply the skills he was learning in a professional setting.
By graduation, he felt prepared to pursue work in the industry he’d dreamed about since childhood.
Within two weeks of his graduation, Damian was hired at Little Jaye where he says that his boss always calls applicants who have FareStart on their résumé because she knows the quality of the program.
For Damian, FareStart was more than job training; it was a chance to pursue a childhood dream. Today, Damian is building his own culinary career and saving for an apartment. One day, Damian hopes to return to FareStart, this time as an employee to help others reach their own goals.
“I really want to come back and work at FareStart. That’s my goal.”
Read more stories about FareStart graduates and our job training programs and how you can get involved to help people transform their lives.
