Tender Greens Sustainable Life Project

Culinary arts internship for young adults transitioning out of the foster care system.

THE PROGRAM
We believe in the power of food to bring nourishment, healing and opportunity to young lives, and the Sustainable Life Project delivers this to the youths who need it most. SLP partners with local organizations to recruit young adults aging out of the foster care system to participate in paid 6 month culinary internships. Our interns experience working in a fun, fast-paced environment

while learning about the production and preparation of healthy, sustainable food. The SLP internship consists of work experience at a Tender Greens restaurant, field trips to our farms and markets, cooking and nutrition classes held at Inner-City Arts in Downtown Los Angeles, and life skills and employment workshops. Students develop culinary arts skills in the classroom, put them to use while working at Tender Greens, and learn about where the food comes from during field trips to Tender Greens’ partners, including Scarborough Farms, La Brea Bakery, Silver Lake Farms and ReRide Ranch, to name a few. Upon completion of the program, interested students are given first priority for a full-time job at Tender Greens. OUR STORY
In 2009, Tender Greens began hiring homeless teens to work in their restaurants and saw how the healing power of fresh, healthy food could transform young lives. The Sustainable Life Project was born out of this experience and the desire to break cycles of poverty. The founders of Tender Greens create the program to provide emancipated foster youth access to safe, consistent education and employment opportunities. Young adults transitioning out of the foster care system face unique challenges that make them especially vulnerable to homelessness and poverty. Distrust, abuse, neglect and general lack of access to resources and guidance often leave them ill equipped to navigate adulthood. Without primary needs like housing, vocational training and legal support being met, these youths frequently don’t have the luxury of dreaming beyond finding shelter and employment. SLP nurtures the personal and professional development of its interns, cultivating the talents, confidence, and mentorships necessary for them to successfully pursue long-term goals.

05/10/2017

From Chef Frank Avilla, who is a former foster youth himself, on the opportunity to mentor others. (One-minute watch)

May is National Foster Care Month. Spread the word.

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02/09/2017

Mentor or Volunteer | To Foster Change Impact For A Lifetime Becoming a mentor or volunteer is a great way to make a life-changing difference for children in need of permanency. In Los Angeles County, there are 28,000 children in foster care. By grade 11, only 20% of foster youth are proficient in English, and 5% are proficient in math.…

01/26/2017

Give Foster Youth A Chance | To Foster Change Tender Greens saw an opportunity to help at-risk foster youth by creating the Sustainable Life Project, a paid 6-month culinary internship program.

11/30/2016

Meet Josh. Here he is preparing beets for the day's quinoa grain side for the Happy Vegan Salad. He's a back of house lead at Tender Greens and a graduate of our program. He's training to be a chef. Watch our short film to see his story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNA6-2d3b3A

11/03/2016

Want to know why we love doing what we do? 52% of former foster youth are unemployed within 4 years of leaving foster care. 1 in 4 will become homeless within those 4 years. Watch this film about what we, Tender Greens, decided to do about it.

Give Foster Youth a Chance 52% of former foster youth are unemployed within 4 years of leaving foster care. 1 in 4 will become homeless within those 4 years. Tender Greens, a restauran...

10/24/2016

We had a blast at United Friends of the Children's Cultivate LA event on Saturday with our fellow LA Chefs to benefit foster youth. This event and UFC's work so perfectly mirrors our work that it was a no brainer. Looking forward to next year!

Please join us in supporting UFC and their important work to empower foster youth. www.unitedfriends.org

02/19/2016

Scarborough Farms grows the beautiful lettuces that underpin the entire Tender Greens menu, and we are always incredibly grateful for a chance to take interns and team members to visit their farms and facilities, where we learn more about how our food is grown and get to meet the people who pour their love and attention into growing the tastiest lettuces we've ever come across!

12/14/2015

Another amazing SLP pastry class, this time put on by the incredible Annette and her assistants Rachel and Sandy. A huge thank you to all of them for teaching us how to make a classic gingerbread cookie and a really stellar apple pie! And props to SLP graduate Asia for teaching us all how to make her grandma's chocolate walnut cookies--yum! We all went home with full bellies, a lot of new knowledge, and big smiles on our faces! Happy holidays!

12/10/2015

Thank you Vio for leading an incredible pastry class for the SLP interns and the rest of our team members at TG Walnut Creek! We had a wonderful time learning to make Mexican wedding cookies, cranberry pie, and bûche de Noël. Then we filled our bellies with these delicious treats and some traditional German mulled wine. Yum!!

12/04/2015

Thank you so much to the wonderful team at Stumptown for putting on an incredible tour and tasting for our interns! We got to see the entire process from unroasted bean all the way to the cup, and learned a ton about how coffee is raised, processed, roasted and brewed and what makes Stumptown's coffee, culture and farmer relationships so special. What a great experience!

11/26/2015

So proud of Kate and all the SLP interns!

We are so honored to be named Best Incubator by Sunset Magazine in their upcoming December issue. Enormous thank yous to everyone who makes the Sustainable Life Project possible--the chefs who dedicate their time, love and energy to mentoring their interns, the team members who support the interns they work alongside, our partner organizations, and most of all our wonderful, dedicated, and driven interns!

http://westphoria.sunset.com/2015/12/01/the-giving-season-how-one-california-restaurant-chain-is-making-a-difference/

11/24/2015

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Location

Oxnard

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Telephone

+13109541415

Website

http://tendergreens.com/sustainable-life-project

Address

Oxnard, CA
93030–93036