Chili’s regional manager Tim Leslie, a board member for the Wilkinson Center ministry, approached his company with an idea: The center had clients who needed job training, and Chili’s needed experienced food handlers. By joining forces, everyone could come out ahead.
The training program that resulted consists of an intensive four-day session that includes instruction in food handling, waiting tables and dishwashing. Those who complete the training receive a framed certificate and receive priority in hiring within the Chili’s chain, as well as a higher starting wage.
So far, Chili’s staff has held three training sessions. More than 50 Wilkinson Center clients have completed the training, and about 25 percent have already been hired by Chili’s.
One of Chili’s recent graduates and a new employee is Linda Edwards, who has been a food server at the Chili’s on Skillman just north of LBJ since November. A resident of Welcome House, a halfway house for drug abusers, Linda rides the DART system daily to her job. Her commute takes almost one-and-a-half hours each way, but she is grateful for the opportunity.
“So far everything is going great,” she says. “I’m really learning a lot – learning more every day. And I get along with everybody who works with me just fine.”
Before taking the training course, the 42-year-old had only worked an unskilled job at a South Dallas grocery store. The mother of two grown sons was addicted to crack cocaine. Opportunity came when she realized that “it was time to completely change my life.”
“I had been in rehab before, but this time I wanted to do it for me, not for my family or anybody else.
“They tell me that’s what makes it work.”
Edwards looks forward to saving enough money to move into a place of her own, and maybe having her own means of transportation someday. She is grateful that the Wilkinson Center and Chili’s gave her a chance to make a change for the better.
Chili’s has committed to a total of six training sessions. In previous sessions, Chili’s came to the Wilkinson Center with its own food, supplies and staff members -including bilingual instructors – to duplicate the circumstances potential employees would experience in a real restaurant.
Wilkinson Center’s Candy Hearne has seen first-hand the benefits this program has had for the center’s clients. “The training has helped them with job skills and in communicating with potential employers,” she says. ” It greatly enhances their self-confidence when they apply for employment. And even if they don’t go into restaurant work, it teaches them life skills: how to show up for work every day and on time, and how to better handle food for their own families.
“These are skills the rest of us take for granted, but which many of our clients have never had the opportunity to learn.”
The Wilkinson Center is a ministry affiliated with Munger Place United Methodist Church and the East Dallas Cooperative Parish, which is multi-denominational. A relief center serving the poor and needy in East Dallas, the Wilkinson Center’s mission is to provide hope and help to people in need. For more information about the ministry and volunteer opportunities, call 214-821-6380.
