Kitchens For Good gives away its mission in its title. The money made in their store goes to support apprenticeships helping people who face barriers to employment overcome those challenges. Those people go on to find meaningful, rewarding work as cooks, bakers and in the hospitality industry.
Today, hundreds of people hold good, decent-paying jobs thanks to the start they got at Kitchens For Good.
“People come to us, they’ve spent a period of time with us doing basic kitchen skills, they can learn culinary or baking skills, and then at the end of their time with us, we help them write their resumes,” said Mary Scafidi, the chief operations officer of Kitchens For Good.
That brings us to the crux of this story, a way to help those programs continue on.
It’s an item up for bid right now on Kitchens For Good’s eBay store. Actually, it’s 20 items; a collection of remarkable Italian cookbooks from the 70s, called Italy in Bocca.
“Bocca” is Italian for “mouth.”
Mary Scafidi said it’s rare to find a complete set of these whimsical tomes. They were donated by a woman whose late husband had collected the entire set.
“They are about different regions of Italy, so each book has its own region, and it’s written in the dialect of that region along with being written in English and Italian, so it’s three languages in each book. The covers are hand-made on cardboard, painted. The paper is made out of oatmeal, they’re just really special books,” Scafidi said.
Kitchens For Good’s Niko Parker set up the item on eBay. On Monday, when we visited Kitchens For Good, the auction was off to a good start.
“We have one bid of $3,000 right now,” Parker said. “We have 18 watchers and we have 131 views right now.”
The auction closes on Thursday afternoon just after 3:30 p.m. Plenty of time for cookbook collectors to get in their bids on something truly unique, something that will really help Kitchens For Good’s mission; to set people on new and productive paths in life, getting good jobs, bringing lives to fruition through the power of food.
