Celebrating Graduation of our 24th Cohort - December 19, 2024

Last night, a terrific crowd gathered to celebrate the trainees in our 24th cohort! Family, friends, mentors, and Root alumni joined us to honor their accomplishments and share a final meal together. There were many highlights of the evening, and we are so grateful to everyone who attended to support this amazing group of young people.

The graduation program featured guest speaker Liam McClennon, CEO of Kettle Cuisine, the world's largest producer of fresh soup with 1200 employees and 5 manufacturing sites, including Lynn. Liam shared remarks about his 40-year career in the food industry and why the industry is a great place to forge a career.

“The food industry is a vital but often underestimated industry - The size of the industry is worth about $1.7tn in the US – much much larger than the car industry, the trucking industry, even the software industry—the (food) industry employs over 20 million people and the career paths are almost endless."

Liam offered his congratulations to the graduates and encouraged students to find him during dinner if they wanted to talk more about building a career in the food industry. We are grateful to Liam and the Kettle Cuisine team for hosting our students for field trips and introducing them to a wide array of career paths!

The program also included remarks from Marvin, who stepped out of his comfort zone to speak on behalf of his cohort (and we loved seeing him joined by Estiben, one of the Root grads on our kitchen team, to provide moral support!) 

“Root has been different than I expected - it has been way better than I ever hoped...I’ve learned a lot - how to work with a team, leadership skills, and new kitchen terminology. And I learned that working as a team is better than working by yourself because if we all help each other out, we can get things done faster and smoother."

"One piece of advice I would give anyone thinking about joining the Root program is to go for it - take the chance even if people say don’t do it because you never know what’s at the end of the line. Here I am speaking tonight, which is out of my comfort zone, but that’s what I learned here: the confidence to try new things and believe in myself.”

Marvin did his externship at Bernadette in Salem, and we are excited to share that he was offered a job on their team (and starts work today!)

Next steps for this talented group of young adults include new jobs (three of those offers came from their externships!), working Root’s Alumni Employment Program, and working toward finishing high school.

Congratulations to Cohort 24 for putting in the hard work and dedication to complete the Culinary Training Program. We are incredibly proud of all of them!