This Arlington Cooking School Has a 92% Job Placement Rate

It’s an early spring morning and Jonathan Aponte is heading from his home in Woodbridge to the Hilton Arlington National Landing, where he works as a hotel kitchen supervisor. His duties include checking in orders, reviewing invoices, taking inventory, helping the chef and sous-chef with recipes, and making sure multiple walk-in refrigerators, freezers and storage rooms are orderly and well-maintained.

Soon he’ll be taking on payroll and scheduling duties, too. For Aponte, 45, the $25-an-hour job is the first step in a major career change. He caught the cooking bug years ago, watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations and other foodie shows while undergoing dialysis three times a week. It stayed with him after he received a kidney transplant in 2013. 

Ten years later, Aponte was unemployed, having left an office manager job at his alma mater, George Mason University, for mental health reasons. “I had no idea how to cook,” he says. “I looked at culinary schools, but they were very expensive, and I was already paying off student loans.” 

Online research led him to Kitchen of Purpose (KOP), an Arlington nonprofit that provides culinary training to low-income, mostly immigrant minorities, then helps them land jobs in food-related businesses such as restaurants, hotels and senior living communities. In June 2023, Aponte entered one of the organization’s eight-week culinary and sanitation training sessions (called cohorts), followed by a monthlong, 160-hour paid internship at the Hilton. As happens with most KOP graduates, his internship transitioned into a full-time job. 

“I didn’t pay a cent for the program,” he says. “A scholarship covered everything—the binder, the pens, the pencils, the uniforms. Even the knives, [including] a chef knife, a boning knife and paring knife, plus a honing steel and the knife roll you carry them in. They belong to you when you graduate.”

Kitchen of Purpose, originally known as La Cocina VA, was founded in 2014 by Paty Funegra, a native of Peru who first moved to the U.S. to work on sustainability projects at the Inter-American Development Bank.

Funegra was volunteering at D.C. Central Kitchen when she noticed that many immigrants weren’t receiving culinary training because they lacked English proficiency.

At first, her fledgling nonprofit ran its operations out of the basement of Mount Olivet United Methodist Church near Ballston. Its initial mission—training Latino immigrants in culinary and English language skills and donating meals they prepared to neighbors in need—expanded over the years to include a wider range of programs for people of all backgrounds. 

As the concept grew, Funegra oversaw a capital campaign to build the 5,000-square-foot facility on Columbia Pike that the organization has occupied since 2020. The space includes a classroom, a café (currently closed) and two 1,000-square-foot industrial kitchens. One kitchen is used for culinary training while the other operates as a ghost kitchen that food entrepreneurs can rent while getting their start-ups off the ground. 

La Cocina VA rebranded as Kitchen of Purpose in 2022. The following year, Funegra passed the torch to the current CEO, Brian MacNair, who served as executive director of World Central Kitchen from 2013 to 2019. The two had met a decade earlier when MacNair was the chief development officer at D.C. Central Kitchen. “Paty had the space and instructors for La Cocina, and we gave her a curriculum for a two-month program,” he says. 

Today, a dry-erase board in MacNair’s office outlines the cohort schedule and the details of KOP’s $1.6 million budget. Its projected funding for 2025 includes $825,000 from foundations and corporations such as Amazon, Capital One and Wegman’s; $200,000 from workforce development agencies in Arlington and Alexandria; and $450,000 in federal and state government funds. The revenue projections also include $125,000 in rental income from the dozen or so start-up businesses that lease its second kitchen space, including a personal chef service, a company specializing in Bolivian salteñas, and a Chinese family that sells pork bao at area farmers markets.

A wall of framed photos chronicling MacNair’s travels with World Central Kitchen shows him smiling with students in Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cambodia—places where the organization in its early years taught clean cooking, food safety and culinary skills. Joining those missions were chefs and luminaries such as José Andrés, Anderson Cooper, Ted Allen, Tom Colicchio and Victor Albisu. MacNair calls it the “Food for Change” wall. 

The operation he oversees today offers free job training to anyone whose income is 60% or below the area median income (AMI), which differs by county. In Arlington, 60% of AMI amounts to about $46,000 per year for a single-person household.

“Last year, our students represented 18 nations, including Norway, Tunisia, Palestine, Ethiopia and Afghanistan,” says MacNair, whose management team also includes director of operations Daniela Hurtado and program manager Paloma Martinez. “We provide training for them to start out at fast-casual places, prove their skills to employers and move up the ladder. They make an average of $18.50 an hour in wages, so $37,000 a year. This year, we project $2 million in annual wages from our job placement, and more than half a million dollars paid in taxes. These were previously unemployed people.” 

In 2024, KOP trained 86 students with a 92% job placement rate. 

Born and raised in Arlington, Esvin Gramajo was always interested in cooking. His father, a chef, worked at various local restaurants, including Lebanese Taverna and Mylo’s Grill. During his high school years at Yorktown, Gramajo took culinary courses at the Arlington Career Center. 

“KOP [then La Cocina] had a competition at my school,” says Gramajo, now 22, a first-generation Guatemalan American. “I entered but didn’t win. It was a pan-seared chicken dish and crepes for dessert.” 

After graduation, he worked at Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe and enrolled in Stratford University’s culinary arts program in Alexandria. Three months in, the university shut down. 

Not one to give up, Gramajo applied to KOP and became a member of its fall 2022 cohort. “I’d get to the bakery at 3 a.m., then leave at 7 a.m. and go straight to class from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. Then I’d go home and sleep,” he says. 

KOP’s curriculum, overseen by chef-instructor Martha Palacios, covers kitchen safety and sanitation, knife skills, vegetable and protein cookery, basic butchery, kitchen science, and how to make mother sauces such as velouté, hollandaise and bechamel. Through the program, Gramajo earned his ServSafe Food Manager certification from the National Restaurant Association, as well as Allertrain certification, which centers on safely serving diners with special dietary needs such as food allergies. 

Palacios runs a tight ship. She’s a retired U.S. Army veteran whose family immigrated from Nicaragua in 1986.  After leaving the military, she earned culinary and baking diplomas from Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Florida, and held various food industry jobs in Miami. Her interest in teaching began during the pandemic when she started offering online cooking classes. She joined the staff of KOP in 2022, moving her family to Northern Virginia.

In addition to culinary proficiency, KOP emphasizes job readiness. Students practice their interviewing skills via mock interviews with business owners and job recruiters who come on-site and offer feedback. 

After completing an internship with FLIK Hospitality Group on the Freddie Mac campus behind Tysons Galleria, Gramajo was hired there full time. 

“I started on the salad station, then to the grill, oven and fryer, and then to junior sous-chef,” he says. He now makes $22 an hour cooking for thousands of people in one of the company’s four kitchens.

In 2023, Gramajo launched a side business—a pastry and catering enterprise called Sweets by Esvin. He specializes in eclairs, flans, chocolate-covered strawberries and large chocolate hearts (to be broken with a mallet) filled with Ferrero Rocher chocolates. 

 

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KOP played a hand in that, too. His start-up was aided by the nonprofit’s Food Lab, a small business incubator that assists entrepreneurs with basics such as creating an LLC, registering with the health department, financial management, marketing and pitching potential investors. Food Lab graduates can apply for three months of free kitchen space in KOP’s ghost kitchen.

“I wanted to learn about business, so I took the small business incubator for two months,” Gramajo says. In the process, he learned how to create a business plan, maintain steady cash flow, keep the books and market his concept. His ultimate goal is to open a shop called Esvin’s Bagels and Café in Prince George’s County, where he and his father recently purchased a house. 

Program graduates come from myriad cultural backgrounds and all corners of the world. What they share is ambition.

“A common trend when we interview people who want to come to KOP is the eagerness to learn,” says Cintia Castillo, a former IT recruiter who oversees client success and development for the nonprofit.

She routinely mentors students well beyond graduation. “I am really good at playing matchmaker,” says Castillo, a first-generation American born to Salvadoran parents who lives in Falls Church. “I understand where people are coming from. They relate their long-term goals and what they have to offer so I can pitch that to employers.”

Over time, those employers have come to include giants such as Wegman’s, Sodexo, Hilton, the Archer Hotel, Goodwin House senior living and Aramark. Many companies have hired KOP graduates after sending representatives to conduct mock interviews.

Castillo coaches trainees on how to present their culinary bonafides, as well as soft skills and interview tips—like not asking about salary right off the bat. “Asking about salary right away shows you’re not there for being there, but just for the money,” she says. “I explain that they may not start out making much, but if they are patient, it will be very rewarding.”

In Aponte’s case, heath issues contributed to his anxiety about switching careers. “I had someone in my personal life who had a kidney transplant,” Castillo says, “so I understood his concerns. I told him he could achieve whatever he wanted to. Hilton understood that he had the drive, even if he didn’t have the culinary experience.”

KOP alumna Helina Kebede is going places. The 22-year-old came to the U.S. from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 2023, joining her mother, who immigrated in 2016. (Her mother owns Azi Flowers on Columbia Pike, not far from Kitchen of Purpose.) After graduating with the June 2024 cohort, Kebede landed an internship at Earl’s Kitchen + Bar in Tysons that soon turned into a permanent position paying $19.50 an hour. 

She says the training she received from KOP was invaluable: “I never worked in a professional kitchen, so I really wanted to learn knife skills. They taught so many things. Kitchen etiquette, like what to wear—no jewelry, for example—sanitation, keeping your station clean, understanding the chemical reactions of foods and why things are cooked in a certain way.” 

“I liked her energy from the moment I met her,” Castillo says. “She’s kind of a goody two shoes who’s excited about learning, like me. She wants to open her own restaurant one day.” 

In December, Kebede moved one step closer to that goal, starting a new job in the British Airways lounge at Dulles International Airport. Sean Kelly, an executive chef with parent company Sodexo, had spoken with KOP students and remembered being impressed with the program. He reached out to Castillo to ask if she knew of a graduate with management potential. He had a sous-chef position at the airport he was looking to fill.  

“He asked me for someone who could grow, and Helina came to mind immediately,” Castillo says. 

After sailing through a phone interview with Kelly, followed by a panel interview that also included the property’s general manager and the corporate regional chef, Kebede was hired as sous-chef, earning $30 an hour. 

“It was a bit of a leap of faith,” says Kelly. “I’d rather have someone who may not have all the technical skills but who wants to learn and grow. I can teach someone how to chop an onion, but I can’t teach them to care about chopping an onion.”  

Today, Kebede’s duties include running the back-of-house operation, working the line, creating menu specials, monitoring food safety and other regulations, training staff and leading team meetings. 

Some of the kitchen staff initially bristled at the idea of working for someone so young—and a woman to boot, Kelly says. “She wasn’t intimidated by that. Now they all respect her.”

KOP is attuned to the needs of the marketplace. In 2022, it began offering front-of-house training because so many understaffed restaurant owners were desperate to fill waitstaff, host and bartending positions. In addition to teaching service basics and conflict management skills, the program offers barista and bartender training.

In March, four KOP students are in the kitchen preparing for their final exam. Their black cotton uniforms, aprons and pillbox hats, all emblazoned with the Kitchen of Purpose logo, are crisp and immaculate. Pens and food thermometers are neatly tucked into the pockets of their jacket sleeves. 

Each stands at a tidy station outfitted with a cutting board, printed recipes and a mise en place of beautifully sliced, diced, chopped and minced ingredients. Carrot peelings, chicken bones and other scraps have been set aside and saved for stock—nothing is to be wasted. Each trainee has deftly butchered a pile of raw chicken parts that now rests atop a pan on ice to maintain food safety.  

“They are fabricating chicken breasts to pan fry and make with beurre monté [emulsified butter sauce],” Palacios explains. “They have two hours to make a protein, starch, vegetable and sauce.” 

While the English speakers in the cohort fire up their sauté pans in the kitchen, the Spanish-speaking students are taking the written part of their final exam. “The next day, they’ll switch and those who need to take the ESL test will do so,” Palacios says. “Friday is the deep-cleaning party. Everyone has to clean, no matter what hat you wear. I’m huge on that.” 

At this point, all 10 of the students in the spring 2025 cohort have been offered internship positions well ahead of their April graduation date. Castillo reports that they’ll be heading to the kitchens of Morrison Healthcare, Tatte Bakery and Capo Deli, as well as two senior living communities and a couple of government-related employers.

Meanwhile, in KOP’s other kitchen space, Victoria Cortes and three cooks are busy prepping a week’s worth of anti-inflammatory meals for people with compromised immune systems. As the owner of Victoria Cortes Personal Chef Service, Cortes will deliver the meals to clients the next day. The heady aromas of Thai-basil beef stir-fry, Cajun-blackened wild salmon and grain-free quiche with caramelized onions waft in the air.

“I’ve been working out of the KOP kitchen since 2022 and it’s going really great,” says Cortes, who lives in Falls Church. “I was a personal chef in clients’ homes for 12 years, cooking for one family a day. Now I cook for 15 households a day.” 

Cortes pays $3,200 per month to use the nonprofit’s ghost kitchen—a fee that includes dry storage, refrigerator space, equipment use and a cleaning fee.

“KOP is great for a business my size because it’s such a big jump to go to the next step, getting my own kitchen,” she says. “This way I can grow my business. I’m bootstrapping everything.”

 

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For a time, the nonprofit had a 20-seat café that it rented as a pop-up location for food entrepreneurs such as D.C. chef Rock Harper, whose Queen Mother’s fried chicken enterprise now has a permanent home in National Landing’s Water Park. 

MacNair closed the cafe in 2024 (he says it wasn’t profitable enough for the trouble), but has plans to repurpose it in a way that gives back to the local community. KOP already offers food assistance by partnering with Boys and Girls Clubs and Community Lodgings to provide bag lunches to kids in after-school programs. “Many take them home because here’s no food at home,” MacNair says. 

His newest idea, called Family Meal, aims to use the café space to host an initiative similar to chef Massimo Bottura’s Refettorio concept in Harlem, “where chefs close their restaurants once a week and feed folks in need a high-end meal created with dignity and love.” (The term “family meal” is restaurant slang for the communal meals shared by kitchen and waitstaff before or after a busy shift, to build a sense of camaraderie and teamwork.)

He’s hoping to enlist local chefs to cook for people in shelters run by nonprofits such as New Hope Housing, PathForward and Bridges to Independence. His target list includes restaurateurs who have already partnered with KOP, including Colada Shop owner Daniella Senior, Chiko founders Scott Drewno and Danny Lee, and Taco Bamba creator Victor Albisu.  

The goal, MacNair says, is to line up $200,000 in corporate sponsorships to offer Family Meal once or twice a week. Once it’s established, his plan is to widen the outreach to include clients of food pantries such as the Arlington Food Assistance Center. 

“We want to bring wraparound services to them—maybe address housing needs and mental health services and how to manage finances, with folks coming in to talk about these things. We want them to feel respected and seen in a nice environment with a nice meal, while also helping them move toward the next step in their life.”

Respect, dignity and next steps are staple ingredients in KOP’s mission. Any of its graduates can attest to that. 

When you graduate, “they give you a chef jacket with your name on it,” Aponte says. “Maybe I’ll open my own restaurant one day and wear it then. I never dreamed of that possibility until I went to Kitchen of Purpose.”

David Hagedorn is Arlington Magazine’s dining critic.