C-CAP and Toast Empower the Next Generation of Hospitality Talent

Toast and C-CAP celebrate their first year of partnership, unlocking new ways to help C-CAP students learn, grow and thrive in the restaurant industry

In early 2024 Toast announced a partnership with Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) and Toast.org, the company’s social impact arm, to support youth culinary training programs across the U.S. with a commitment of $500,000. C-CAP is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization providing culinary training and career readiness skills primarily to underserved middle and high school students, 90% of whom identify as people of color.

"Creating opportunities for underserved communities is so important to Toast and imperative for the industry we serve," said Angela Roseboro, Chief Diversity Officer. "Working with C-CAP is such a natural fit for Toast, and together we can help empower the next generation of culinary talent and with the skills and exposure to hit the ground running in restaurant roles from front to back-of-house."

In addition to funding, the two-year partnership has included donation of Toast hardware and software so students can gain valuable experience with the industry-leading restaurant technology platform, helping them enter the culinary workforce with all the skills they need to succeed in a restaurant. Throughout 2024, Toast employees have also donated their time and expertise by volunteering with C-CAP’s job readiness program, and helping students learn the Toast point-of-sale (POS) platform. We caught up with Tanya Steel and Jennifer Solomon, Executive Directors of the nonprofit, to hear more about the impact we’re making together.

Building Community and Tracking Impact

C-CAP has been operating for 34 years, graduating over 370,000 program alumni in the process. While the team knew anecdotally that their alums went on to work at top restaurants and served as CEOs of wineries, owned and operated their own businesses, and even brought their skills to the Food Network and more, C-CAP didn’t have the resources to quantify or measure their own success. 

“Working with our alums and getting better connected to them both allows for us to continue to support them, and for them to support us and our programming” shared Steel. “We can help them with networking and job opportunities, career development, and externships. And they can help us by providing professional support, coming to our benefits, and serving as mentors and inspirational figures for our students,” Steel added. 

With funding from Toast.org, C-CAP was able to hire a Director of Adult Programming & Alumni Relations, and work with an agency to contact 7,000 program alumni. From the outreach, the team ended up with feedback from over 600 former students, with helpful data and insights on how C-CAP had impacted their lives and careers.

 Some highlights from the data: 60% are working in food-related careers, 24% have associates degrees, 44% have earned bachelor’s degrees or higher, 36% have stayed connected with C-CAP since graduating, and, excitingly, 72% wanted to be more involved with C-CAP going forward. 

“C-CAP is one of the pillars that support the foundation of my roots in this industry. It shaped my fundamentals. Thank you for being the help we can always count on,” shared one current pastry chef, via the alumni survey. 

In the future, the C-CAP team hopes to expand their data to quantify the number of alumni who are entrepreneurs and have gone on to start their own businesses. “If you look at the racial wealth gap, what a lot of these workforce development programs like ours do is create opportunity. We feel strongly that measuring entrepreneurship is a key metric for our success because it means a lot if our alumni feel confident enough to go start something of their own,” said  Solomon.

Empowering Future Culinary Leaders with Restaurant Tech 

Success in the restaurant industry isn’t just about cooking—it’s also about navigating a thousand little things from front to back of house to make for great hospitality experiences, and that includes being able to seamlessly use industry tools and technology. 

To give current C-CAP high schoolers a leg up with those skills, Toast and C-CAP are piloting a program at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, New York. The program brings the Toast POS system, including the Toast Go® 2 and Kitchen Display System (KDS), into the hands of the 140 C-CAP students at the school. 

Once the pilot is complete, C-CAP and Toast hope to roll out this program and Toast hardware to more of C-CAP’s over 186 affiliated schools.

A Toast to summer job training

Each summer, a handful of C-CAP’s high schools offer summer job training to students. These programs provide career awareness, mentorship, field trips, and culinary training. Many of the students are able to secure paid internships at local restaurants after completing the bootcamp.

As Toast and C-CAP enter another year of working together, Toast.org will continue to leverage people, products, and philanthropy to make a difference for C-CAP students.

“Leaders like Toast enable us to strengthen the industry as a whole. Bringing a talented and diverse generation of food stars to the industry, through Toast, is something we are incredibly proud of and grateful for,” shared Steel. 

Tanya Steel and Jennifer Solomon are the Executive Directors of C-CAP, leading the nonprofit. You can connect with Tanya and Jennifer on Linkedin.

Learn more about Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP) on their website.

This information is provided for general informational purposes only, and publication does not constitute an endorsement. Toast does not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information, text, graphics, links, or other items contained within this content.