SA Expat Daughter Offers Incredible Opportunity for Refugees in New York
What makes Emma’s Torch Classroom Café – opened recently – 10th June – in Red Hook, Brooklyn – so very special? By NAN MELVILLE. It is an enterprise which trains refugees – from anywhere in the world – to cook – so they find a fulfilling job, self-worth and language skills in the new and […]
What makes Emma’s Torch Classroom Café – opened recently – 10th June – in Red Hook, Brooklyn – so very special? By NAN MELVILLE.
It is an enterprise which trains refugees – from anywhere in the world – to cook – so they find a fulfilling job, self-worth and language skills in the new and very different American environment.
The Café is named for Emma Lazarus, the activist-poet, whose famous lines – “Give me your tired, your poor / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” – are inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty.
Emma advocated vocational training and she fought tirelessly on behalf of refugees – calling for action at a time when the voices of women were seldom heard.
Her legacy lives on in Kerry Brodie and her Emma’s Torch Classroom Cafe – the six-month pop-up in the now ‘vibey’ main Van Brunt Street in Red Hook.
While Kerry was born in Maryland, USA – her family is from Port Elizabeth and she feels a strong connection with South Africa – saying she has voices of both grandmothers in her ear as both were great cooks.
Kerry is seen above with the Singing Kettle Cookbook by her gran, Selma Brodie – while the other gran, Beryl Meyer, was a caterer and event planner in South Africa.
Apart from recognizing that she inherited exceptional South African work ethic, Kerry has extraordinary education, skills, temperament, experience and – yes – chutzpah – across the board – which equipped her to make her dream a reality.
However, the one ingredient crucial to her achievement – is her PASSION.
Kerry says in her profile on Jewish Women International:
“I worked in public policy and have always been very passionate about social justice issues. I spent my free time working on food related causes, like volunteering at a homeless shelter or teaching cooking classes to my peers where we’d prepare meals for a shelter for women living with HIV.
“For years, I’d talk about how someone should use the culinary world to empower refugees. Finally my husband said to me, “Why don’t we stop asking why someone else isn’t doing this and take the initiative?”
“I quietly and deliberately started laying the groundwork for Emma’s Torch, putting feelers out and seeing what existed. And now 18 months later, we have this organization that’s functional and equal parts exciting and terrifying.”
The enterprise is non-profit and provides free, top-notch culinary training to refugees and helps them find meaningful careers in the food industry.
They have a eight-week, paid apprenticeship program, ($15 an hour) and students receive 100 hours of culinary training and licensing. Students also participate in accelerated English language classes tailored towards the industry. Each cohort is comprised of two students and an instructor, so each student receives a lot of individual attention.
The curriculum, designed in consultation with the Chef’s Council, ensures that the students master all of the critical skills needed to work in a restaurant kitchen.
Kerry says: “Telling our students, “You’re welcome and we want you here… and what you bring to the table matters,” was amazing. I didn’t expect it to have that type of impact.
“Telling people “Hey, the food that you make, the arepas that your grandmother taught you how to make in Venezuela, we want to eat them,” makes somebody’s face light up.
“I hope that the voices saying that refugees matter, that they are welcome, and that they make our country great are helping to uplift the community that we serve.”
You can see it all on https://emmastorch.org
https://youtu.be/CcOtJmZRnqY