Sabrina Mutukisna, is co-founder of Town Kitchen, an Oakland based, chef-crafted subscription food delivery service that employs low income youth between 15-25. Sabrina shares her story of growing up in her parents drycleaners in California and then working to support herself through UC Berkeley. Along the way, Sabrina became very motivated by what she saw and experienced, and spent 13 years doing jobs in workforce development. Sabrina worked to help foster children, formerly incarcerated youth and other young people figure out how to start a career, complete degrees and certificates, often helping with basic needs such as housing or childcare. While working for California Teacher Pathway, a program that helped lower income young adults complete a program of community college and then a 4 year degree, Sabrina learned the difficulty of using grant funding to employ youth for more than a year. Sabrina came up with a solution that would offer training and jobs that lasted several years. At Town Kitchen, most employees stay longer than 2 years, get training in the food industry and almost all are enrolled in college. Town kitchen also partners with other community organizations to help its employees with issues of housing and transportation. With one business, Sabrina is helping to create community and so many ripples of change – jobs with living wages, job training, passion for food, and education on our food systems.
