Emilee Bruno, a participant in the Foundation for Culinary Arts’ cooking camps for students in Chicago Public Schools, talks about the benefits of the program during an information session Nov. 12 at The Chopping Block in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood. With Bruno is Frida Orihuela, another participant in the Yes, Chef! cooking camps. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

Emilee Bruno will be pursuing a baking career and credits a nonprofit program with pointing her in the right direction.

Bruno, a resident of Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood, has participated in the Foundation for Culinary Arts’ Yes, Chef! cooking camps, picking up vital kitchen skills and prepping her for a career in the industry.

“The baking camps here, they really taught me a lot more than I previously knew,” Bruno said inside The Chopping Block, a kitchen equipment store and cooking event space in Chicago’s Lincoln Square neighborhood. “It really makes me more confident in my abilities.”

The Foundation for Culinary Arts mentors Chicago Public School students through chef experiences, scholarships and free cooking camps at The Chopping Block and other locations.

Bruno said the camps have provided her the opportunity to meet chefs from all over Chicago.

“I’ve gotten to work with them and I’ve even learned new skills from the camps, especially because there are specific camps,” she said. “There’s baking camp. There’s pasta camp.

“I really think it benefits high school kids, especially because with these camps, they give us our own equipment to take home and they give us the specifics to create a menu and expand our knowledge.”

The foundation’s culinary camps include a Thanksgiving Dinner Community Cook Class on Sunday and a Holiday Baking Boot Camp on Dec. 7.

CPS students participate in the foundation’s Yes, Chef! Pasta Making Camp. (Foundation for Culinary Arts photo)

The organization’s second Thanksgiving Camp is a demonstration-only class designed for high school students from disinvested neighborhoods, with preference given to Yes, Chef! Culinary Camp alumni. Instructors will teach students how to brine, roast, carve and spatchcock a turkey, along with recipes for sides. Participants will receive a gift card for a turkey to complete their Thanksgiving meal at home.

In its fourth year, the Holiday Baking Camp offers students hands-on baking instruction, encouraging them to bond with peers from other schools. The camp concludes with a buffet of baked goods that can be taken and shared with loved ones this holiday season.

Frida Orihuela is another veteran of the culinary camps and says they have made a differencce in her life.

“If I never did this program, I don’t think I would be the person that I am,” Orihuela said.

Getting instruction from various cooks has increased her knowledge, said the resident of the city’s Hermosa neighborhood.

“Working with different chefs, it’s adjusting to how they work and how they manage things, and how they work their kitchen,” Orihuela said. “By doing the camps, everyone comes out winning.”

Catherine De Orio, executive director of the Foundation for Culinary Arts, said the training camps for kids at the high school level give them vital knowledge.

“We are looking to create a vocation camp. We prepare students to go straight into the work force out of high school or to go to culinary school, or they figure out ‘Culinary may not be for me,’” De Orio said. “I feel it gives them transferrable skills.

“The students are not just getting the basics of culinary. They are getting information on nutrition. They are getting home economics, how to use leftovers, how to use healthy substitutions. They are learning about using fresh ingredients.

Catherine De Orio, executive director of the Foundation for Culinary Arts, talks about the culinary training camps for kids at the high school level during The Chopping Block gathering. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

“Many of the students are from food deserts. When they get to a farmer’s market, we get the students involved. They learn how to talk about food. We have them ask questions. They ask, ‘How do I store this?’ They learn how to start thinking about food.”

The host of the former WTTW award-winning show “Check Please!” said the camps also teach students skills to translate to any job.

“They have to be on time, clean and organized or they are just not going to succeed,” De Orio said. “They also learn about teamwork.”

The Foundation for Culinary Arts started with one camp in 2016. Now, it annually conducts five, including an intense food camp in the summer that runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“They do everything from prep to clean-up,” De Orio said of the camps. “They learn how to do the fundamentals. From start to finish, they are working in teams. Each student does every component. We make sure that every single student does every single thing.”

De Orio said a byproduct of the camps is the self-assurance the youths walk away with when they are done.

Young chefs check out their pasta. (Foundation for Culinary Arts photo)

“They are a huge confidence-builder,” the foundation’s executive director said. “They have never made bread before. They have never made fabricated chicken before and they see the final product within the day.”

She said the camps always produce enough food for students to bring items home.

“Familial buy-in is important,” De Orio said. “We make sure the family also sees the benefits of the program. It’s important that the parents see their child grow.

“Oftentimes, parents will tell me ‘I can’t believe my child made those.’ They will also tell me, ‘I can’t get my kitchen back now.’

“What we are teaching resonates with the students. They are taking the skills we teach them home with them.”

When the program pivoted to virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, De Orio said, it became apparent that students didn’t have outfitted kitchens, including proper knives.

“We worked with our donors to put together kitchen equipment kits, first-aid kits, pots and pans, small utensils, deli containers,” she said.

Executive Chef Lisa Counts, owner of The Chopping Block, talks about what students learn in the Yes, Chef! camps. (Photo by Kevin Beese/Chronicle Media)

De Orio said a foundation survey found that everyone who received an equipment kit during the pandemic still uses the items they were given.

The foundation has continued to provide the kitchen equipment to students since returning to in-person classes in 2022.

De Orio remains passionate about the food-camp program.

“This is my baby. I created it and feel so strongly about it,” she said. “I went to culinary school. I do food media. I started as an attorney, but these camps have changed my life on so many levels.”

For information on applying for the culinary camps or being involved with the foundation, go to https://foundationforculinaryarts.org/.

kbeese@chronicileillinois.com