Five Culinary Arts students are getting a head-start on life after CCC. Upon being interviewed, the students studying in the Coahoma Community College program recently launched a paid internship with Meraki Roasting Company, where they get to experience what being an entrepreneur in the food and drink industry is like.
With 12 more weeks to complete in the 16-week program, interns are having both soft and hard skills developed, also learning company structure, customer service, and marketing.
"This is the first semester of execution of the internship with CCC Culinary," said Lee Craven, lead instructor of Coahoma's Culinary Arts program. "This exposes them to several real-world aspects of a successful business that Culinary School alone cannot provide."
Meraki, a youth-rearing program and coffee roastery located in Clarksdale, Miss. that opened in 2017, grew out of a larger local non-profit, Griot Arts, a program founded in 2011 that links the youth to the arts, education, and workforce development and empowers them toward positive change in themselves as well as their community.
According to Meraki's program director Ben Lewis, participants of the paid internship complete 160 hours in its practical learning environment along with a minimum of 14 individualized sessions with one of its coaches and delve into curriculum modules.
"Our curriculum covers a broad range of topics such as communications, teamwork, social and emotional identification, and self-control, motivation, financial literacy, and resume and interview skills," Lewis detailed.
"When a young adult spends time in our program, we primarily focus on soft or essential skills development. Soft skills are necessary for one to achieve "success" in a general sense. Hard skills are required to accomplish a specific task. We believe our partnership with CCC will allow us to better support each individual/student in both. CCC is helping to equip young adults with the hard skills needed to accomplish their career-specific goals, while we are focusing on helping each individual develop a solid foundation of soft skills."
Meraki maintains a partnership with local for-profit business Big River Bagels, allowing participants a view of managing the sale of foods.
"Program participants who show initiative and demonstrate growth within the Meraki program will get additional opportunities through a Big River Bagel mentorship to gain skills such as menu creation and costing, baking, food preparation, packaging, etc.," Lewis explained.
Tyriana Triplett, of Indianola, Miss., currently in her sophomore year of CCC's Culinary Arts program, says the best part of the experience is getting hands-on in learning to run a business. She and fellow interns are paid biweekly.
"From opening the restaurant, opening the cash register, and making sure everything that needs to be done is done to continue to bring money and business into your restaurant…You learn a lot of different things and skills about coffee and other things besides coffee like leadership skills and learning to work with different people," Triplett described. "It is a very great experience if you are trying to have your own business."
Get more information about Coahoma's Culinary Arts program, in which you can obtain a Technical Certificate, Advanced Technical Certificate, and an Associate of Applied Science degree, at www.coahomacc.edu/programs/career-technical/programs/culinary-arts/index.html.