Chef Who Spent Time In Jail Now Trains Other Ex-Offenders In Culinary Arts
Brandon Chrostowski, founder of EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute in Cleveland, spent a few days behind bars as a teen for fleeing and eluding an officer — and he credits his success to a chef who mentored him despite his past.
Now he’s paying it forward to dozens of others, with his restaurant doubling as a culinary arts training program for ex-offenders.
“We have a community of individuals coming out of prison who don’t get a fair and equal opportunity because of their past,” Chrostowski told The Huffington Post. “We give them experience in the culinary arts. They get the fundamentals, but also a perspective on the business — which means they’re employable. It worked in my life, it works in others’.”
The institute is free, and students get a stipend of about $300 every two weeks. In the last three years, 130 students have graduated from the program.
What’s more, most of the staff at EDWINS have also spent time behind bars.
“It’s about building a vessel to take someone from not having a skill to having the right ones,” Chrostowski said. “If you give someone a fair chance, and some mentorship, they can forge a way for themselves and turn the stars around.”
What kind of challenges did you see your students facing as they came out of prison?
Some needed a place to stay — that’s why we have free housing. Some needed money for transportation, so we would advance a bus pass and take it out of their check gradually. If they need someone to watch their kids, we find a babysitter.
“When you see someone living in a shelter, working hard to memorize types of Bordeaux, there’s an injustice to that formula that just isn’t right.”
What’s the importance of starting job training in prison, before someone even gets out?
The idea is that when someone is released, they have a skill.
We started our prison program in 2011. We are in Grafton Prison in Ohio, teaching the fundamentals of cooking: how to use knives, burners, select wines. Over the last five years, at least 100 people have come through it.
How much do you think your privilege had to do with your experience with the criminal justice system?
“I got a break from a judge when I was younger… I believe, because I was white.”
Coming from a city where I was a minority, my mentors were African-American, and to see opportunities not happen to other people that happened to me, that didn’t sit well.
“Along this journey I saw a lot of injustice out there. When people work in restaurants, they get paid less — there’s people buying $4,000 bottles of wine, served by people struggling to buy a carton of milk.”
And if you look around at our country, race is a huge issue. But if you can help someone navigate the system, and succeed, it will start to peel back the layers of injustice and inequality.
What does success look like for students in your program?
Successes happen every day. This one student, Josh, he started using again mid-way through — heroin. But we don’t kick people out if they use drugs.
We build them a stronger plan, we get them sponsors, the case manager gives them the tools to change, and we support them. We respond as a family.
Josh went through that twice, but he graduated. Now he’s working in a nonprofit kitchen cooking meals for adults who are overcoming addiction. Some would say, ‘What kind of culinary grad works there?’ But I think that’s a fantastic victory.
What can ordinary people do to help with the issue of re-entry?
What I know best is the restaurant business, so we change the way people think about those who get out of prison through food and through culinary skills.
But everyone does something well: What could you do in your life to help someone who doesn’t have as much as you do to get a little further? If you’re willing to teach, mentor and give opportunities, you can provide that support.
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