As we continue to celebrate our 25th anniversary, this month we are taking a closer look at the Culinary Job Training program. This guest blog post comes from one of Second Helpings’ founders, Jean Paison, and is adapted from her remarks at the graduation ceremony for Culinary Job Training Class 155 this summer, at which we celebrated reaching 1,000 graduates. You can watch the full ceremony on YouTube, with Jean’s speech beginning around the 5-minute mark.

Good afternoon,

Jean Paison, speaking to Class 155 at their graduation ceremony

I am Jean Paison, co-founder and volunteer of Second Helpings. I am delighted to be here to help you celebrate your achievement. You are joining a group of people who have chosen to make a difference. Not just a difference in your life, but in the lives of many people you have never met. The act of commitment to the Second Helpings program might have been the most recent decision you have made for yourself. We are so glad to have helped support that decision. You have worked hard.  You have probably done things that you thought you could never do…like read and study again. Or look at the sharp end of a knife and whack away.

Never in my wildest dreams did I believe that we would be in this building celebrating 1,000 graduates.  Although, my co-founders, Kristen Cordoza and Bob Koch, would tell you that we did dream of this kind of success when we began. My job as one of the founders was to draft our business plan. Me, write a business plan? I was a pastry chef! I had never written a business plan or a grant proposal or made a call on a prospective donor. I called on a few friends and they coached me through it.

Everything we did here was by the seat of our pants. Look around – can you believe it? We started by the seat of our pants, and look what you all have done! This is a community-led organization. It was never about 3 people – it’s about thousands of people, and I’m going to tell you how I came up with the math.

So I didn’t know how to write a business plan, but I learned. One of the methods of forecasting (or guessing how many meals we would make, or agencies we would serve, or students we would train) is grabbing a number based on the math that we saw in other agencies across the country. I am boring you with the details so let me cut to the chase and tell you we had no idea what was to come. But we knew it was coming. We designed a BHAG. Do you know what a BHAG is? A BHAG is a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. It is bigger than, taller than, almost unattainable.

You are all part of my BHAG.

So you think you are part of 1,000 people who have been touched by this program. I am here to tell you that if I were going to write a grant proposal to the largest donor in Indianapolis this is what I would say. We started out with 6 dedicated individuals who wanted to learn, study, become part of a team, and create personal success. They complete their assignments and go on to create their own BHAG.

Then the proposal gets really good.  The donor will want to know what the long term impact will be on their investment.  This is what I would write. In 25 years 2,419,000 people have benefitted from the Culinary Job Training program (and I’m not even talking about Food Rescue and Hunger Relief here).

Where in the world did I come up with that number? I read your bios and counted the number of people you thanked. You thanked family, friends, Chef instructors, staff, volunteers, spiritual parents, classmates, donors, yourself, WRTV, and God.

Some of you thanked the class sponsor, WRTV. There are 122 employees there. You thanked your employers, so I added them in, along with your Chef instructors. I estimated 30 Second Helpings staff members. CJT team members. Your sisters. Your parents and spiritual parents. Your classmates. One of you thanked your self for all your hard work, which I think is pretty incredible. Several of you thanked our volunteers – our 500 volunteers. A few other individuals were mentioned, including Chef Sam Brown, one of our first students who went on to serve as a Chef instructor here. And you thanked our donors, and I estimated 1,000 to keep the math simple.

If we take that 2,419 aggregate that your class thanked, and multiplied that by all the 1,000 people who have graduated from this program, we get to 2,419,000 people that this program has touched. That’s an incredible impact.

Each one of you will have the opportunity to be more, do more, and live more, because you made a commitment to your own personal BHAG. And the next time I see you, I want to know what the next phase of your BHAG is because I know there is more to your stories.

Congratulations on your achievement, I am so proud of you.