Cooking Up Opportunity: La‘i‘ōpua 2020, HCC Offer Free Chance to Explore Culinary Careers

Have you ever watched a cooking show and thought, “I could do that”? How much time do you spend crafting culinary creations of your own in the kitchen? Do you ever think about cooking for a living?

La‘i‘ōpua 2020 and Hawai‘i Community College-Pālamanui are partnering to provide adults with an opportunity to explore working in the culinary industry. They are offering two cohorts, one this fall and another next spring, for haumāna to learn culinary skills and take the next steps to employment or further education in the industry.

The free program centers on basic culinary skills curriculum and includes working in a commercial kitchen, learning about safe food handling and sanitation, creating menus using healthy local foods, use and care of kitchen equipment and knife skills. Each student also will complete a food safety handling course.

The fall cohort runs Oct. 11-Nov. 10. Classes will be in the evenings in the college’s culinary arts classroom and kitchen and in La‘i‘ōpua 2020’s commercial kitchen.

To apply for the fall cohort, click here. Spring cohort dates have not been determined.

La‘i‘ōpua 2020 is a nonprofit organization with a mission of providing social, recreational, vocational, economic, educational, and cultural opportunities and infrastructure to Native Hawaiians. For more information, call 808-327-1221 or click here.

To learn more about Hawai‘i Community College-Pālamanui, click here.