Seagull Services is launching a new training opportunity in connection with its Supported Employment program to train people for work in the banquet industry.
Students are learning how to prepare tables for banquets and other food service settings to better prepare them for potential employment in the culinary and banquet industry. It’s one of three new training opportunities that Seagull Services is offering its Supported Employment participants.
Seagull Services is a West Palm Beach-based nonprofit that provides educational, vocational and life skills training to students and adults with developmental disabilities.
“We’re super-excited about this new program,” said Olivia Morris, Seagull Services’ director of Supported Employment. “While some of our students learn a little about the culinary industry through existing internships, this program will prepare all of them for possible employment in culinary fields.”
Seagull has partnered with Johnson & Wales University, one of the premier culinary training programs in the nation, to provide training and evaluation of the students’ work. Jim Flader, assistant professor of the College of Food, Innovation and Technology, will be participating in an online session to work with the students as they master three types of table settings: basic, casual and formal.
Flader will evaluate the students’ final project in the course in which each will pick a menu, location and the appropriate table setting, and create story boards to depict their tablescape.
Later this year, Seagull’s Supported Employment program will begin two additional training programs — an office assistance program focused on filing and other basic office skills and a grocery bagging program.
Seagull’s Supported Employment program has continued via online classes since the pandemic caused shutdowns. But some Supported Employment participants already in the workforce have been on their jobs throughout the pandemic, with support from Seagull’s team. The new training programs are designed as pre-employment training to make Seagull’s Supported Employment students ready for immediate employment in those fields.
For more information about Seagull Services and its charter school, Seagull Academy, visit www.seagull.org.
