Statements

Mission

Pathways Kitchen helps justice-impacted youth thrive over survive by providing training, work opportunities and individualized support to ensure they can can chart their own path forward.

Background

Pathways Kitchen was born from Cafe Momentum, a restaurant and culinary training program founded in 2015 in Dallas, TX to serve youth exiting detention facilities. We were founded as Cafe Momentum Nashville in 2021, and began our program in 2022 as an 8-week training program. With the launch of our catering arm, by 2023 we were providing consistent work opportunity to youth who had completed the initial training program. To better adapt to the needs of the Nashville community, Cafe Momentum Nashville became Pathways Kitchen in 2024. Today our work continues to be inspired by the successful Momentum Model while reflecting the local needs of our community.

Impact

In 2023 we hosted six introductory training course cohorts (up from four cohorts in 2022). Of interns who completed this phase our program in 2022 or 2023, 30 continue to engage in our program. 2023 participant numbers are:
- Recruited 71 young people into our program, with 44 beginning Pathway 1 training
- 36 (82%) successfully completed Pathway 1 of the program
- Currently actively engaging 42 young people through various stages of our program


We conduct a number of assessments throughout our program to measure impact and program effectiveness. 2023 impact numbers are as follows:
- 80% of interns have maintained or improved academic progress
- 42% of interns have improved life skills (based on Casey Life Skills Assessment) and 58% have improved self-efficacy scores after 8 weeks of Tier 1 training
- 84% of interns shared that they feel more prepared for a career in the restaurant industry
- 85% of interns shared that they feel more confident communicating and advocating for themselves
- 81% of interns shared that they feel more confident in managing a budget and their finances
- 73% of interns shared that they feel more prepared to engage with new people
- 85% of interns shared that they feel more prepared to engage in new opportunities

Needs

1. We are fundraising to support our 2024 program, providing our youth with uniforms, meals, assistance with transportation to and from the program, along with the vital living wages for their work at catering services and pop-up dinners.
2. Funds are needed to support operational and capacity building costs such as critical staffing to assist with intern case management, build our partnership pipeline, and more to expand our capacity to serve youth.
3. We rely on community partnerships to help connect us to a pipeline of youth and to help us resource them with an ecosystem of support to meet their individual needs, including medical, mental health, financial literacy, and education support and accountability needs. Partner referrals and introductions help us better support our youth.
4. We seek to reform the juvenile justice system in Nashville and across the US. Racial disparities keep the crisis out of view for too many groups not impacted by systems of oppression. This hinders the ability to build broad movements for meaningful reform. Having supporters use their platform to discuss our work would make a meaningful difference in terms of exposure and advocacy for justice-involved youth.

Service Categories
Primary Category:	Youth Development  - Youth Development Programs
Secondary Category:	Employment  - Job Training
Tertiary Category:	-

Areas Served

TN - Davidson