Community Kitchen Pittsburgh

Community Kitchen Pittsburgh (CKP) uses food as the foundation to improve lives and change communities by providing culinary jobs training and opening career pathways to individuals who experience barriers to employment. This mission is embedded into our hunger relief and community meals programming, with culinary students learning their craft by helping to prepare thousands of meals for the most vulnerable in our community.

Community Kitchen Pittsburgh provides culinary jobs training to people who are unemployed or underemployed and who may have barriers that prevent them from reaching their full potential.
All students receive comprehensive culinary instruction, job placement services, wrap-around support, case management, a stipend for their work, and referrals for services to help them gain the stability in the lives needed to succeed.

We are considered an employment-based social enterprise, as all participants are paid while in training with us, and we also provide extended transitional employment for those who can benefit from a longer engagement in a supported work environment. We train in a commercial commissary kitchen with upwards of 2000 meals daily going to area homeless shelters, schools, afterschool programs and other nonprofits serving vulnerable clientele. Increasingly, we are partnering with other agencies to pair meals with other critical services. We also operate market-based social enterprises lines (such as our catering, butchery, events, and food truck), with proceeds supporting our programs.

Testimonials

"They give you all the tools-everything you need-everything you need to know about cooking. You get the free schooling, you get the knowledge, you get something you can carry with you for the rest of your life." --DJ

"I was homeless and didn't know what direction my life was going until I enrolled in CKPgh. After enrolling I felt I had a purpose and I knew everything was going be okay." --BC

"When I came to Community Kitchen, I wasn't sure what I was going to get from it. By the time I graduated I was actually confident enough to walk into an establishment and sell myself." --TK