Readers Care Fund: At FareStart, cooking up an education

EDITOR'S NOTE: For a quarter-century, Seattle Post-Intelligencer readers have donated generously to the newspaper's annual Readers Care Fund drive, generating more than $5 million for local charities. Today, we look at one of this year's beneficiaries: FareStart.

FareStart's most public face in Seattle is its restaurant, where lunch munchers eat Swimming Rama, pumpkin-seed-encrusted catfish and macaroni and cheese for under $10. But profit is not the bottom line.

For those who have hit bottom, FareStart changes lives.

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Not only does the organization make and deliver 2,500 meals daily to homeless shelters and child care centers, it does so at the same time it runs a 16-week culinary program, the restaurant, a catering service, two cafes and a coffee kiosk. Although the cafes are off-site, everything else is done in the restaurant's cramped kitchen, which also acts as a hands-on classroom for 250 students, most of whom are homeless as well.

It's a $3 million business operation that coordinates housing, transportation, job skills and life-management skills for its students, who get placed in new jobs 80 percent of the time.

The FareStart restaurant at 1902 Second Ave. is open from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday for lunch, but on Thursday, it adds a Guest Chef Night, a popular attraction pairing a local chef with mostly senior-level students to whip out a three-course gourmet meal for $20. It brings in $4,000 to $6,000 a week.

Not only does FareStart emphasize self-sustainability to its students, the organization practices what it preaches. Its latest expansion is the "Youth Barista" program. Modeled after the adult program, it concentrates on a beverage dearly loved by Seattleites and relies on donations, such as coffee provided free of charge by Starbucks.

FareStart has also recently spun off a new project -- "Kitchens with a Mission" -- to help organizations in other cities emulate its model of combining training and retail business.

"People like the fact that we're just not asking constantly for money. In fact, we earn 40 percent of (our) revenue," said Bill Adamucci, co-chairman of FareStart's capital campaign. "That's not lost on students, either. They're not getting a handout. They're making the meals to help other disadvantaged folks. They're earning their way."

The campaign, which has raised $6.7 million since it began three years ago, is focused on moving FareStart into a new home with two big kitchens and offices to consolidate staffers, who are crowded and scattered in a few locations. The goal of $8 million is within sight.

"Right about now, we're turning away as many people as we serve," Adamucci said.

FareStart's evolution into a social entrepreneurial organization began in earnest in 1992, when the organization received its non-profit status.

FareStart began in 1987 as the brainchild of chef David Lee, who envisioned a "central kitchen" where daily meals for local homeless shelters and other disadvantaged groups would be prepared. It was called Common Meals. But it was apparent even early on that food could be used not only to feed the homeless, but also as a means to take them off the streets for good.

"We had this crazy pretense of building a community by taking the homeless -- folks looking to change their lives -- and put them in a kitchen," said Barbara Hill, who was FareStart's director of development when she retired about three years ago after being involved since 1992. "We thought, 'Let's put people together around food and use it as a vehicle to create community.' "

By 1996, FareStart had its current system of a 16-week culinary curriculum up and running. Its combination of kitchen and life-management skills proved to be the kind of stable foundation students needed in their lives. "It is often like a stack of cards," said Megan Karch, FareStart's executive director. "When one card falls, they all begin to fall."

P-I reporter Athima Chansanchai can be reached at 206-448-8041 or athimachansanchai@seattlepi.com.

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