Monday: Liberty's Kitchen

On Monday, a group went to visit with Janet Davas, owner of Liberty's Kitchen. Basically it is a small local restaurant in the downtown area. There are a few neat things about this particular business. Everyday, Liberty's Kitchen feeds over 600 elementary students breakfast, lunch and a snack. They have a full coffee bar and dining area, but the employees make Liberty's Kitchen really unique.

Janet runs a program where employees, primarily high school drop-outs, must be enrolled to obtain their diploma or GED. The business will subsidize some needs these participants may have such as child care. Not only will her employees have an education when they are done with the program, they will also have skills that apply to culinary jobs as well as leadership skills. Since she founded the program, more than 160 youth have participated. This showed us that many our society assumes desire to go nowhere in life share the same desire for education the rest of us do.

Janet has made changes in the community but she told us she will feel accomplished when there is no longer a need for her program because youth are being served by New Orleans' public schools. Her saying is, "There is no excuse for not having an education."