Graduation Day at the Ottawa Mission's Food Services Training Program

The Ottawa Mission's executive chef Ric Watson and his team will prepare 12,000 meals for Thanksgiving this year. (Tyler Fleming/CTV News Ottawa)

It's graduation day for the Ottawa Mission's Food Services Training Program, as 12 students graduate.

The four-month, five-day-a-week job training program teaches students the skills necessary for working in a commercial kitchen.

"It's amazing. I feel blessed to be able to do this," Chef Ric Allen-Watson told Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa Now.

Since its inception in 2004, 90 per cent of graduates from the Food Services Training Program have found employment in the food service industry.

"This one guy sticks in my head – he was living in a tent," Allen-Watson said Wednesday.

"He came to us, this is quite a few years ago, and he changed his life totally. Now he has his own apartment, he has a job, he's got a life and he's happy."

Of the 12 students graduating today, 11 have secured positions in the industry, according to the Ottawa Mission.

The new graduates include Panah, who is originally from Iran and came to Canada in 2022 after living in Turkey and working as a translator for refugee support.

Allen-Watson says another graduate is Tetiana, who fled Ukraine last spring after her city of Mariupol was destroyed. Allen-Watson tells 580 CFRA he spoke with Tetiana at the start of the program.

"She said yes, 'I've lost my home, I've lost my city and I've lost my country', and it was just heartbreaking to hear that," Allen-Watson said.

"The Ottawa Mission has helped her get an apartment, start a new life in this training program. She has a job and her and her husband are both working now, so it's amazing to see the change in how they come to us with nothing and then they leave and they're just a whole different person."

Allen-Watson says after Tetiana was accepted into the Food Services Training Program, her husband was offered a job at the Mission's kitchen, and they found an apartment close to the shelter.

"It's an amazing opportunity to start a new life in Canada. It means a lot to me," Tetiana said in a statement released by the Ottawa Mission.

"It’s so hard to organize a new life. If not for the help of The Mission, we couldn’t do anything. We were like little birds who had fallen out of our nest. Without The Mission and our host, it would have been impossible."

More than 230 people have graduated from the Ottawa Mission's Food Services Training Program since its launch in 2004.

Allen-Watson says there were 91 applicants for the 25 spots in the January program.

"So that just tells you the need out there for people that really want to change their life and really need our help," Allen-Watson said.