In a kitchen in New York City, kids huddle around a hunk of beef. The beef is bigger than a school desk! 

“Anyone wanna jump in?” asks the butcher teaching the Tuesday afternoon class.  

One student grabs a sawblade about as long as his arm. He sweats while trying to separate the short rib from the rib eye. 

A group called the Food Education Fund makes these chef lessons happen. The goal: Help kids become chefs. More than half the kids in these classes are Hispanic. Over a third are black. The majority live below the poverty line. (The poverty line represents the lowest amount of money that a family needs to afford necessities.)  

Leaders at the Food Education Fund want to instill a new generation with a love of feeding others.  

Consider Anthony Trabasas. His family moved here from the Philippines five years ago. He wanted to work in the world’s best restaurants. Through Food Education Fund internships, he was able to cook under an award-winning pasta chef.  

Mr. Trabasas is now 21. He works as a “floating” chef in an excellent restaurant called One White Street. He spends his shifts running up and down the stairs of the four-story townhouse. He does whatever is needed—whether it’s searing fish or flipping a dozen burgers. 

His dream? Open his own eatery one day. He’s still figuring out what kind. What he does know: He wants to create better work environments than chefs have now. 

The kitchen industry is famous for its toughness. Chefs work long hours in extremely stressful conditions. “If you have happy people within the organization, you just make better food,” Mr. Trabasas says. 

Why? Restaurant work is famously hard. Fresh ideas can make it a better career for many people. 

For more about cooking, see The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker in our Recommended Reading.