Youth Culinary Mentorship

Milwaukee-based culinary company Tasteful Events Catering is launching a new initiative, Tasteful Opportunities, to provide hands-on culinary training and mentorship to high school students, college students, and early-stage entrepreneurs.

The program aims to offer real-world internships and credit-based learning in multiple areas, including culinary arts and catering, business and financial literacy, marketing and event management, community service, and youth mentorship.

“I’m helping the community that helped me,” said Tasteful Events Catering Owner Alicia “Thee Chef” Green about creating the program.

According to a press release, Tasteful Opportunities will target teen mothers, students who lost a parent to violence, or those navigating underserved systems.

Green said the program will teach participants the ABCs of running a business in the first three years, including attaining permits, how to define costs, and strategies to find new clients.

Culinary students ages 17 or older, and entrepreneurs in their first three years of business, are encouraged to apply. Tasteful Opportunities will offer free training for students. Entrepreneurs will be charged a program fee with a potential option for a scholarship to cover costs.

Green is currently recruiting for its first Fall and Winter cohorts with plans to increase programming.

Those interested in applying for Tasteful Opportunities can join the waitlist by clicking here.

Feeding Families With Love

Back in 2017, Green founded A Loving Village, the nonprofit arm of Tasteful Event Catering, where she worked with troubled teens and those who lost parents to violence. She’s now getting back into similar work through the introduction of Feeding Families With Love.

Feeding Families With Love will deliver free, chef-prepared lasagna meals to families facing food insecurity, especially single teen parents, elders, and grieving households. Each meal includes a half pan of lasagna, fresh garlic bread, salad, and roasted vegetables.

Through the support of A Loving Village, the program will also include free meal deliveries.

According to a press release, the program is about restoring dignity, building joy, and showing love through food.

“I knew I always wanted to do community [work], I just didn’t know how,” said Green.

Green was between the ages of six and seven when she started cooking. Her mother worked multiple jobs, so it was up to her and her siblings to cook their own meals; this sparked an early interest in food for Green.

She got her first catering gig in the early 2000s, and by the beginning of 2014, she started selling homemade meals to pay bills.

“I was just trying to eliminate a struggle,” she said.

Green turned her will to make it to the next day into a business and extension of the community.

“When I first started this, I didn’t know I was blessed with vision,” said Green. “I can’t unsee it, so I keep going.”

To donate to Feeding Families With Love, click here.