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# Celebrity Chefs Volunteer at St. Joseph Center in Venice for Hunger Tour
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/062805-story-20050628-3/
- Published: 2005-06-28T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:19:18.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Venice, #archive-import, Homeless

tunate, a few of the nation’s hottest young chefs on Monday teamed up with “Share Our Strength” and Lexus to launch “A Tasteful Pursuit: Chefs on Tour for Hunger.”

The traveling chefs shared their strengths by volunteering their time in Venice at St. Joseph Center, which assists the working poor, homeless individuals, and families to achieve self-sufficiency through food distribution, housing assistance, and more. In cooperation with the culinary training program housed at the Bread and Roses Café, the chefs will share their passion for cooking while teaching new recipes and cooking techniques to students.

Included in the event were chef Brad Thompson of Mary Elaine’s at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale; chef Cornelius Gallagher of Oceana in New York City and pastry chef Sherry Yard of Spago in Los Angeles.

They participated because one out of every four children live in poverty in LA County and many of them risk experiencing hunger, officials said.

St. Joseph Center provides emergency services, food, child care, job training, and senior services to more than 7,000 homeless and low-income men, women, and children each year in Venice, Santa Monica and West Los Angeles.

The center’s culinary training program provides homeless and low-income men and women with six weeks of classroom and practical training in food industry skills, followed by a four-week internship in hospital food service. The program also includes life skills coaching, resume preparation, mock interviews, and bus tokens for transportation to assist graduates to find work. The culinary training program is housed in the Bread and Roses Café that serves 150 hot, nutritious meals to homeless individuals each weekday.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 28, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062805.pdf?ref=smdp.com)