Read on and get the recipe for her famous carrot dogs
Angie Dupree runs One80 Place’s Zucker Community Kitchen, which provides job training to people who have experienced homelessness.
CM: How does One80 Place contribute to the city’s workforce?
AD: One80 Place offers an umbrella of services, but a highlight is the Zucker Community Kitchen, where we provide a five-week course in work readiness and help people get placement in restaurants here. We are a housing-first organization, and job training is something that supports the housing. Although the culinary program’s been on hold because of COVID, previously we had a 98-percent placement rate. The jobs are available, and we have an amazing employer pipeline.
CM: What does the program do for the students, besides helping them get a job?
AD: The cooking is a function of connection. They come to us looking for not only a skill set, but a way to feel lifted up again. It brings them happiness to cook for people and a little redemption in their lives. The Community Kitchen is an amazing place to be; we’re taking food that is wasted and people who are undervalued, and we are turning them into success stories every day. It’s infectious.
CM: What’s a favorite moment from running the culinary program at One80?
AD: There was one guy, Allen, who had worked in kitchens quite a bit and didn’t see himself experiencing homelessness. He had an amazing skill set, but he had to learn how to be humble, how to take instruction, how to put all those things together to be successful. He had a real aha moment. He started a position in a downtown restaurant at $15 an hour, and now he’s a sous chef making a salary. He was one of those people we were here for when no one else was. It’s about being here and meeting people where they’re at. Allen just needed a restart to be successful. He had the skills, but needed new tools and an opportunity.
CM: You are just ending your presidency of the Charleston chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier. How does that philanthropy compare to what you do every day at One80 Place?
AD: That’s been a beautiful opportunity to give scholarships to women who are coming up in the culinary industry. Les Dames gave to my program, and that’s how I got involved with them. I found myself around women who mentored me and pushed me into being the president. I never saw myself in that role, but that’s what happens sometimes when you’re around powerful women.
CM: Thanksgiving is coming up. Tell us about the Turkey and a Twenty program.
AD: The Thursday before Thanksgiving, we ask people to drop off a turkey and $20 at a drive-through right outside our shelter at 35 Walnut Street. We’ll get about 400 turkeys. We serve them throughout the year, but we also pick a day and serve them to our community, and our case managers deliver turkeys to up to 50 former clients who are now housed.
CM: What’s the story with these “carrot dogs” we’ve heard about?
AD: Carrot dogs are something we use here in our transformation class. Limehouse Produce is one of our sponsors, and they send carrots by the 50-pound bag. We trim them down, cook until tender, and marinate them for 24 hours. Then we grill them. I make the students close their eyes and bite into the carrot dog. They taste so delicious; it blows them away!
Get Angie’s Carrot Dogs recipe here:
