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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Roberto Ponce, Community Engagement Associate at Hot Bread Kitchen
6:32:18
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177 sec
Roberto Ponce, representing Hot Bread Kitchen, testified about the organization's workforce training programs for immigrants and asylum seekers in New York City. He highlighted their success in enrolling over 2,000 participants, with a focus on people of color and women, and requested continued funding support from the City Council for their culinary career pathways program.
- Hot Bread Kitchen has expanded its services to multiple boroughs and surpassed its growth goal of 1,000 members.
- The organization provides wraparound support, including case management and job placement services.
- Ponce specifically requested support for the $100,000 Welcome New York City initiative and the Women Immigrant Workers Initiative.
Roberto Ponce
6:32:18
Thank you to the City Council, Chair Aviles and the Committee on Immigration for your attention and commitment to supporting New York City's immigrant community in the 2026 fiscal budget cycle.
6:32:30
My name is Roberto Ponce, a community engagement associate for Hot Bread Kitchen, and I'm testifying today on behalf of Hot Bread Kitchen, an organization that creates economic opportunity through job skills training, food entrepreneurship, and an ecosystem of support for individuals who face barriers to meaningful careers.
6:32:46
This year we will continue our efforts to provide workforce training for New York's asylum seeking population.
6:32:52
Over the past seventeen years, Hot Bread Kitchen has enrolled over 2,000 program participants into our programs to help them launch careers in the food industry, start and grow their small business, and access the resources they need to succeed at work and in the world.
6:33:05
Our community includes residents of 50 city council districts.
6:33:09
91% of our members identify as people of color with 86% identifying as women.
6:33:14
Just over half of our members across our programs were born outside of The US and are non native English speakers with approximately 82% of our members unemployed before starting one of our programs.
6:33:25
They've reached starting wages post graduation of about 18 to $22 an hour.
6:33:30
Our members are dedicated hardworking New Yorkers seeking opportunities for meaningful careers, sustainable income, and long term wealth generation for their families.
6:33:39
We offer our members several programs to reach economic mobility including culinary career pathways for New Yorkers.
6:33:47
We provide wraparound support, case management referrals to our 200 plus community based organizations to access child care vouchers, affordable housing, mental health services.
6:33:59
We provide metro cards, stipends, and job placement to our network of employer partners.
6:34:04
We're very grateful to have received funding from the city council which has supported our growing number of enrolled members and expansion of offerings into other boroughs including Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens.
6:34:15
With the council's investment, we have surpassed our three year strategic growth goal of 1,000 bread, winners strong by 2,000.
6:34:22
We're renewing our efforts to seek the council support for culinary career pathways for New Yorkers in fiscal year twenty six, specifically for the continuation of this needed program and ask for your support for 100,000 welcome New York City initiative funding, some support for women immigrant workers initiative requests.
6:34:40
With the arrival of an unprecedented amount of migrants and asylum seekers in New York City for the past several years, Hard Bright Kitchen developed and launched this program by adapting our training to targeted, to provide targeted services for this asylum seen population.
6:34:55
In 2025, we graduated one cohort of 24 members and we just began another one of 25.
6:35:00
For both cohorts, we have over 500 applications.
6:35:04
We continue to serve more New Yorkers each year in accessing economic mobility and we respectfully urge the Committee on Immigration to support our applications for funding for this final year.
6:35:13
Thank you for your attention and investment in Hot Bread Kitchen's work.