We Can Be Podcast - The Heinz Endowments

Jen Flanagan is founder and executive director of Community Kitchen Pittsburgh, an employment-based social enterprise that empowers people through food service training and life skills mentoring. With an impressive 93% placement rate in professional kitchens for those who complete their training programs, she and her team are giving brighter futures to hundreds who find themselves struggling to overcome systemic barriers at the margins of society. After witnessing the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in NYC from her publishing company office window, Jen felt a change inside. "After 9/11, I decided I wanted to do something more with community service," she said. "I just wanted to change my trajectory." When an AmeriCorps VISTA program placement brought her to Pittsburgh, she soon realized the intersection of two of the most persistent issues our country is facing – food insecurity and access to living wage jobs – provided enormous potential to do good. She launched Community Kitchen Pittsbur