Career Transitions for Refugees with Emma’s Torch

Refugee job placement services lack creativity. The US resettlement system is “front-loaded,” offering public funds during the first five years post-arrival, that refugees will integrate into the economy and no longer need assistance. This system forces many refugees into jobs with little opportunity for upward mobility.

In 2019, 36% of refugees in the workforce with a college degree were “underemployed,” working in positions that did not require their qualifications—36.2% more than other immigrant populations and US-born workers. Refugee employment services often prioritize immediate job placement over career growth, perpetuating underemployment and limiting financial autonomy.

We address this challenge by helping refugees navigate mid-career transitions. As described in the Harvard Business Review article, “Why Career Transition Is So Hard”:

• There are no institutionalized pathways for refugees to easily access career paths in the U.S. aside from starting over. Institutionalized pathways require employers willing to leverage refugee talent.
• No one is setting employers up for success in this way.
• The loss of professional identity is compounded by cultural and social displacement, often leading to grief. Available jobs rarely provide professional dignity.

Our solution:

• Provides refugees with community support to navigate career transitions.
• Rehabilitates professional dignity through career paths with upward mobility.

Our Culinary Training Program provides professional rehabilitation for refugees by combining classroom and on-the-job training to equip participants with the skills and job readiness training necessary for upwardly mobile careers and financial independence. We leverage new technology inside and out of the classroom to ensure that our students have the tools they need to build long term success in their new careers. 

We chose the culinary industry because it is accessible to those with limited English proficiency, always hiring, and offers opportunities across the U.S., making it ideal for a transient population. Culinary careers allow refugees to honor their culture and heritage through food, fostering community connections while providing pathways for upward mobility.

Our Culinary Training Program supports professional rehabilitation for refugees in two key ways:

1. Creates a supportive community: Our model culminates in job placements with handpicked employer partners who share our vision for empowering workplaces. We orient our employer partners to the unique needs of refugees and support them if challenges arise.

2. Rehabilitates professional dignity: Our efficient, paid program enables students to afford participation and transition to new careers within 11 weeks. We maintain close contact with graduates after placement to ensure they build meaningful and sustainable careers.

We serve survivors of forced migration who must transition careers upon resettling in the US. Although resettlement agencies support refugees in finding early employment, federal funding restrictions and overburdened caseloads often mean they are unable to help refugees access career pathways.

As is typical of the refugee experience, our students face intersecting stressors in their new environments. Before enrolling, most of our students live below the poverty level have limited language and literacy skills; both of which diminish their opportunities to achieve financial stability.

Our solution provides refugees with the skills to succeed in jobs in the culinary industry, allowing them to build a career and earn what they need to provide for themselves and their families. We expect students to benefit in terms of:

• Community Support: By 2030, 95% of recent graduates will report an increased sense of community and support as a result of their participation and completion of Emma's Torch training program.

• Professional Dignity:

  • By 2030, 90% of our graduates will increase their earning power.

  • By 2030, Emma’s Torch graduates will increase their year-one earnings by 6x and be on track for a 5x Philanthropic R.O.I. within five years of graduation.

From our Founder and Executive Director, Kerry Brodie: As a first-generation American, I was drawn to this work through a number of my primary identities. In the 1920s and 30s, my family left Lithuania to seek safety in South Africa. Those who remained in Lithuania were murdered in the Holocaust. My parents and grandparents then moved from South Africa to the US, seeking a more equitable life. Their experience in coming to the US was one filled with hope, and it deeply informs my values and connects me to the experience of our students.

Our belief in the power of representation is reflected among our board and staff members who truly represent all aspects of the work that we do. From industry professionals with years of knowledge about the restaurant landscape to social workers who implement trauma-informed teaching practices for our students, to nonprofit leaders with experience working with refugee populations, our team represents a variety of lived experiences that foster inclusivity and diversity.

We also know our students have a wealth of knowledge to share and have prioritized integrating their feedback into our program. We start a new cohort each month, and integrate learnings from our active students and alumni to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the moment. We also created a six-person Alumni Council to ensure we can learn from our students and cultivate their leadership. This group meets regularly with our program staff to discuss and incorporate feedback and strategize ways to engage graduates after the conclusion of our program. These channels serve to equalize the relationship between our staff and students and ensure that our programming truly serves their needs.

Since launching our Culinary Training Program eight years ago in Brooklyn, we have expanded to three sites and multiple cities. We have served over 562 students, and in 2024 alone, 88% of our 140 graduates secured jobs, with a 83% retention rate after six months. Graduates have collectively earned over $19.31 million in cumulative wage gains, with starting salaries averaging six times their pre-program salaries. To sustain operations, we maintain a diversified fundraising base. As a nonprofit social enterprise, this starts with earned revenue, expected to cover over 27% of expenses in 2025, alongside strong donor and foundation relationships. Our track record demonstrates that our solution is both effective and scalable.

As we’ve expanded to new communities, we’ve prioritized learning and adapting. For example, when facing challenges like student attendance or a dip in placement rates, we investigate root causes and refine our approach. Our DC expansion has been a testing ground for growth, helping us develop a road map for future locations. This road map includes streamlined onboarding processes, partnerships tailored to local job markets, and systems for monitoring long-term student outcomes, ensuring our model is adaptable and impactful across new settings.

Website: https://emmastorch.org/

Instagram: @emmastochfood 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EmmasTorchFood/ 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10913354/admin/feed/posts/

In 2016, our founder identified a specific problem that was not being addressed by organizations in the community: refugees frequently find themselves unemployed without a pathway to professional success, regardless of their qualifications, skills, or career history. Emma’s Torch addresses this issue by operating as an employment social enterprise, an emerging model that combines the power of business to generate revenue with deep social impact. There are two key aspects of our program that make us distinct. First, we pay our students during the Culinary Training Program, ensuring they do not have to choose between earning a wage immediately and investing in their long-term success. This structure ensures equal access to training opportunities for all students, regardless of financial barriers. Second, our program is integrated into our social ventures. They allow us to diversify income streams while provide a real-world training environment where students experience the fulfillment of working in a thriving food business and catalyze economic impact in the community. 

Our vision is to fundamentally change the landscape of the communities we serve by ensuring that refugee resettlement is seen as a public good and a driver of the economy. For nine years, we have witnessed the power of our program in changing the lives of new arrivals. We have proven that this model is replicable in New York City and beyond, having already expanded to new sites. To catalyze broader positive impacts, we are consulting with other organizations to launch similar programs, demonstrating that our approach is scalable and capable of reshaping workforce development for refugees. By showing how resettlement can contribute to both individual empowerment and community growth, we aim to inspire systemic change and set a new standard in the field.

Our primary outcome goals are: 

• Community Support: 

  • With support from employment partners, we aim to place 90% of graduates in upwardly mobile jobs where they can apply skills learned in our program to launch sustainable careers.

  • We target an 85% job retention rate, checking in with graduates and employers to ensure that graduates retain positions for at least six months.

  • By 2030, 95% of recent graduates will report an increased sense of community and support as a result of their participation and completion of Emma's Torch training program.

• Professional Dignity:

  • Our goal is for students to achieve $30,000 in wage growth above their pre-enrollment salary. This increase has an immediate positive impact, enabling graduates to independently meet their basic needs, such as housing, food, and healthcare.

  • By 2030, 90% of our graduates will increase their earning power.

  • By 2030, Emma’s Torch graduates will increase their year-one earnings by 6x and be on track for a 5x Philanthropic R.O.I. within five years of graduation.

These metrics allow us to ensure that our students succeed, not only in securing employment but in accessing the support they need to build sustainable, upwardly mobile careers. 

Our team consists of 19 full-time and 3 part-time paid staff members. These numbers do not include our students who are on our payroll as full-time employees while enrolled in our program. We also have a range of volunteer opportunities and over eight regular volunteers who support our program teams in DC and NYC with resume building, English language learning, and more. We are grateful that Emma's Torch is a community project, engaging so many different individuals in our work.

Emma’s Torch has been developing this solution since our founding eight years ago and officially launched the program in 2017. We have since grown the Culinary Training Program to include additional sites in Brooklyn and DC, a catering business, a consumer packaged goods business. This growth has created more opportunities for immigrants to access financial stability. We are proud to have reached a point of organizational maturity where we get visited by the Secretary of State and DC Mayor and are called to speak on panels and coach others.

Emma’s Torch is committed to fostering, cultivating, and preserving a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion that encourages representation from our students and the community at large. As an organization that serves a diverse multicultural community, we recognize the challenges and biases that exist within the culinary industry. We strive to create communities of belonging at Emma’s Torch, where students feel empowered to learn, grow, and take ownership of their careers.

Fostering diversity and celebrating our students’ heritage has always been key to our success in our recruitment efforts and beyond. We’ve outfitted our staff with licensed social workers so that our students receive education beyond the necessary skills to succeed in a kitchen but with all the tools for adjusting to and thriving in the American workplace. We believe deeply in the power of representation, which is reflected among our board and staff members who co

Our belief in the power of representation is also reflected among our board and staff members who truly represent all aspects of the work that we do. From industry professionals with years of knowledge about the restaurant landscape to social workers who implement trauma-informed teaching practices for our students, to nonprofit leaders with experience working with refugee populations, our team represents a variety of lived experiences that foster inclusivity and diversity.

We recognize that promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, requires constant vigilance and improvement. To that end, we are constantly looking at our various stakeholders, and asking ourselves how we can create a more just and equitable society. Whether it is roundtables with employment partners about their hiring practices or difficult conversations with our board and funders, we know that this will always be embedded in our ethos and mandate as an organization.

Emma’s Torch is an employment social enterprise (ESE), an emerging business model that combines the power of business to generate revenue with deep social impact for people and communities. This social impact model combines the best of a traditional nonprofit structure with the sustainability and economic power that we traditionally see in the business sector. As an ESE, we provide a way for refugees, asylees, and survivors of forced migration to invest in their long-term potential. Typically, newcomers are forced to choose between investing in their potential by attending English class and pursuing a credential or securing quick employment. Crucially, our model allows our students to do both. Over the course of our 11-week program, Our students earn full-time wages—up to $7,700 during the program—while gaining the skills needed for upwardly mobile employment in the culinary industry.

Functioning as an ESE also allows us to deliver value to the wider community. Our customers view our cafes and catering businesses as vibrant community hubs. By dining with us or hiring our catering services, customers contribute directly to empowering refugees and fostering economic mobility, creating a meaningful connection between their purchase and our mission. To our employer partners, we offer a pipeline of trained, motivated, and resilient employees. We collaborate closely with these partners, preparing them to support the unique needs of refugee employees and fostering workplaces committed to equity and empowerment. This partnership creates mutual value: employers gain reliable team members while contributing to meaningful social impact.

Our operations are sustained through diverse revenue streams, including sales from our café and catering services, individual donors, and foundation and grant funding partners. By integrating earned income into our model, we ensure financial sustainability while maximizing our impact.

We are committed to maintaining and expanding upon a diversified funding base to ensure long-term sustainability for our programming. As a non-profit social enterprise, this starts with our earned revenue which, in 2025, is expected to cover over 27% of our expenses. This income source allows us to find greater efficiencies in terms of inventory, staff management, and execution, as well as allowing our organization to have greater resilience when it comes to economic and behavioral changes.

We are also constantly innovating and collaborating with our partners to find new sources of income. For example, in 2024, we added a donate button on Toast, our POS system, allowing customers to donate  to support our mission just as they would contribute a tip at our social enterprises. We are still finalizing the numbers but have raised over $55,000 dollars from this feature in 2024.

Finally, and most critically, we have built long-standing relationships with funding partners, both individuals and foundations, which allow us to truly invest in our work. We are grateful to have sustained multi-year commitments from multiple funders and sufficient reserves to ensure the long-term sustainability of our programming. We are still finalizing the total for 2024, but have raised over $619,505 in donations. This year we also brought on a Development Associate so that we have a staff member entirely dedicated to our financial health and growth as an organization.

We are applying to the Truist Foundation Inspire Awards because we are at a pivotal moment in our growth, where strategic investment and expert guidance can help us scale our impact. This past year, the United States welcomed a record number of refugees and asylees, particularly in the metropolitan areas where we operate. With this influx, demand for our workforce development program has drastically increased. While our expansions to new sites, are important milestones, we know that for every student we serve, many more could greatly benefit from joining the Emma’s Torch community.

Support from the Truist Foundation would help us address key priorities:

• Maximize Capacity in Current Cities: Expanding sites in New York City and Washington, D.C., will allow us to more than double the students we serve, starting with a new site in Inwood, Manhattan.

• Strategic Partnerships: Collaborating with partners to build curricular and programmatic materials will extend our model to support more students nationwide.

• Road Map for New Locations: Developing a roadmap for expansion to new cities, starting with Silver Spring, Maryland, will ensure scalable growth.

Access to capacity-building resources, expert consultants, best practices and key funding would allow us to refine our model, increase capacity, and sustain long-term impact at this critical moment.