FoodWorks is a community-service organization founded on a strong belief in the central role of food in our lives and its power to affect a broad social mission: economic development, job creation, public education, community-building, and skill-sharing. FoodWorks will build and maintain networks in pursuit of this mission, and will support other like-minded food-oriented institutions, economies, ecologies, and entrepreneurs in and around Madison.
Our roots are in entrepreneurship (both in and out of food), small-business, and in the Slow Food movement. We are based in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. FoodWorks is currently volunteer-powered, and started as ideas and ideals in 2014, incorporating in 2016. We are an IRS 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
"First Course" is our three-week job-training program for professional kitchens, designed to provide un- and under-employed adult students with the basic kitchen skills, confidence, and connections they need to get good jobs in food service. First Course covers cooking skills, knife stills, professional kitchen basics and traditions, food safety, and soft skills like job seeking strategies and interviewing practice. We are committed to guiding all graduates to curated job leads that set them up to pursue th