Image: Kickstarter
Some entrepreneurs set out to build a company that will make them millions, others just want to make the world a better place.
Michael Buffett falls into the latter category, and through his not-for-profit Start Fresh Project, hopes to change people’s lives by connecting them to food.
“We have this goal, which is to inspire people to engage with food, and we do that pretty simply just by teaching people seed-to-fork cooking,” he says.
Making use of their training farm kitchen, Buffett and his team have created a year-long training program they offer—for free— to people struggling with unemployment, under-employment and homelessness.
The goal, Buffett says, is to give people meaningful skills on which they can build lives and careers, and then actually give them jobs at the end of it all.
Buffett firmly believes that learning to work with food can have a profound effect on a person’s life, because he himself experienced that power when he was just a young boy.
“There was a lot of points in my life where, if it wasn’t for people who gave me opportunities to work on their farms or in their kitchens, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today, so this is kind of like a pay it forward project,” he says.
“Things weren’t always great” for Buffett when he was young, and when he was 16 he left home. For a while he was essentially homeless, bouncing from church basements, to shelters and boys homes.
“It was really, really hard. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he recalls.
Then, one night, a farmer came to the shelter he was staying at offering work to anyone willing to harvest grape for ice wine.
Buffett, who was 17, took the work. He didn’t have proper clothes or shoes, so the farmer gave him some. That job would eventually lead to work in a kitchen, and forever change Buffet’s life.
Buffett still remembers, after that first ice wine harvest was finished, everyone gathered for a “beautiful” meal. They all ate together, and Buffett says he was touched by the kindness and sense of community.
That’s when he realized how food could inspire people, and even change their lives. Years later, after going back to school and a successful career as a chef, he says he wants to give that same experience to others.
“It’s an amazing experience to go from nothing, and have someone come and give you this gift and feed you and talk to you normally, which is something that not everyone gets,” he says. “If I can do that for somebody else now, through this project, that’s amazing.”
Michael Buffett, founder of the Start Fresh Project (Image: Kicksterter).
In just a few days, the first-ever group of students will start their Start Fresh training.
The program is split between Start Fresh’s kitchen and volunteer-run training farm, with students spending time in each location every month.
As students harvest specific produce they will at the same time learn to work with that produce in the kitchen.
The real beauty of Start Fresh, Buffett says, is that he will actually be able to offer students who finish the program work in the Start Fresh Kitchen.
But in order for that crucial step to fall into place, Buffett needs a little help. Right now, there are only a few days remaining on Start Fresh’s Kickstarter campaign to finance the Start Fresh Kitchen.
The kitchen will be run like a business, offering boutique cooking classes to the general public, as well as catering and other services. The money it makes will be given back to Start Fresh’s not-for-profit initiatives, but it will also give graduates of the cooking program jobs.
There are some great rewards for donors (such as fully catered meals, naming one of the farm’s chickens or cooking classes), and Buffett asks anyone who’s been thinking about supporting Start Fresh to do so now.
“You’ll be getting something you would probably have bought eventually, but doing it now instead of later will really help support us,” he says.
For more information on Start Fresh visit the organization’s’ website, or check out the Kickstarter campaign.
The Start Fresh Project
The Start Fresh Project is raising funds for The Start Fresh Project on Kickstarter! We aim to provide access to culinary and farming education to individuals with barriers to employment.
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