We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lena Goldberg . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lena below.

Lena, appreciate you joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Chef Angels Culinary Program is an innovative outreach program bringing chef volunteers into our underserved communities, and providing hands-on cooking classes to at-risk, foster, and homeless youth. Here is the backstory on how this new nonprofit organization came to be.
For the past 19 years I have been a volunteer with County of San Diego, Foster Youth Services, and with the nonprofit I co-founded in 2018, San Diego Foster Angels. In 2021, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, I offered to teach cooking classes at a trauma recovery home for teenage girls, survivors of human trafficking. It was a very isolating time for youth residing in these therapeutic homes, so they were most excited to have me teach. It made such an impact on not just the girls, but also me as the instructor interacting with them. One of my students “M.” told me she was an aspiring chef/restauranteur. She wanted to open up a restaurant when she became an adult, it was that or her other desire was to become a stripper. Let’s hope with my influence I inspired her to go the culinary route. It was then I had the idea that other chefs might enjoy teaching as well, and the girls could use more frequent classes than I was able to supply at the time.
Moving forward to 2022, I was successful in obtaining a grant to officially create the program through our most generous sponsor Chef Works of Poway, CA. Not only did they provide me with the funds to pilot the first year but gave me many amazing connections in the local chefs world. In particular, Louis Shaban was my biggest cheerleader and coach, providing invaluable insight along the way.
2023 was a year of learning, and by the end of it the vision was clear of what Chef Angels could become, an outreach tool into our most vulnerable communities and showing the youth career paths in culinary that they might not have known was attainable for them. There are many culinary programs that exist across the country serving this population, but I have yet to come across one with the same mission and methods as mine. We chefs know not everyone wants to go into our grueling profession, so at the very least we offer the youth basic cooking skills which many have not had the opportunity to experience in their challenging young lives.
Moving into 2024, Chef Angels is forming a strong foundation with an ever-growing roster of local chef volunteers. We are recruiting for our board of directors, diversity and inclusion being two important aspects of our ethos. With the right funding and team, we will achieve great things and better the lives of those around us.
The “us” is important to me as the Founder. I may have provided the seed of the idea, but without my amazing community of chef volunteers, “normie” volunteers, donors and most importantly the youth groups, Chef Angels could not exist.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My current profession is private cheffing, prior to that I worked in the hospitality industry as a convention and events planner. For the past 19 years I have also been a volunteer in San Diego for foster youth services. These three areas of expertise collided fortuitously when I had the idea to provide cooking classes to underserved youth and concluded that my fellow chefs would enjoy doing so as well. This was the seed that started my Chef Angels movement. Now as the roots are taking, we have been expanding our reach to other youth in need. We have provided classes in therapeutic group homes for teenage boys, that house foster and at-risk youth. We have expanded the program into a drop-in center for homeless youth aged 12-24. Here, we are demystifying the cooking process to youth who have not had opportunities to learn from their families. We are inspiring these youth and showing them the way to have a successful culinary career.
In the very near future, we are creating a new program for extended care foster youth and their mentors, aged 18-21, Transition Age Youth (TAY) is the demographic that we are most seeking to inspire. Later this year, our next challenge will be teaching at an outpatient recovery program for TAY substance users. There is an endless supply of underserved youth groups that our program can benefit, and the goal for the future is to learn from each group of youth, create a model, and share our knowledge with Chef Angels branches around the country and then internationally. We have big plans, all in good time!
Starting up a nonprofit such as this has been rather daunting at times, and I have certainly had many moments of self-doubt. What motivates me the most is the youth we are serving and the trust they have put in me and my fellow chefs. For some of the youth that process has taken over a year, but the ensuing amazing results have been well worth the time and effort put in. I am most humbled by the faith my generous sponsors and donors have in me and my ideas, not wanting to disappoint is a strong motivator to overcoming the many roadblocks I have had along the way. Last but certainly not least, the chefs that have taught the classes come from such a vast experience pool; many have been featured on television shows, others have cooked for some pretty impressive celebrities, quite a few of them own their own businesses, they all have something unique to bring to the youth, and I am honored that they see my vision and have joined me in my cause.
This has all been a wonderful learning process, adapting and changing, all for the betterment of the youth we are serving.

Have you ever had to pivot?

The pilot year of Chef Angels was far from smooth sailing. There were many moments of pivots and self-doubt along the way. Through it all, the support and encouragement of my community kept me going. Plus, receiving a grant was a big motivator to keep it going, to keep learning and adjusting. I did not want to disappoint our benefactors, the chefs who had put in their time and efforts, and mostly the youth who I was building trust and a rapport with. We learned, we adjusted, we found our niche. The path forward is now very clear. It will take lots of time, some money, and many more volunteers and youth, but with perseverance we can achieve great things!

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Social media is a beast to get right. Let’s just say it is a tedious work-in-progress. I have certainly gotten discouraged along the way when the follow count has been slow to tick up and the posts I spend a lot of time creating don’t get a lot of traction. But upon closer look, the followers are all chefs who are part of the program, or chefs that I am avidly recruiting. Amazing nonprofit organizations are paying attention, following and commenting. Other people from my community are joining us along the way. We are exactly where we need to be and slowly growing. The best advice I was given is twofold. When creating content, consistency is key, stay true to your brand image. Use the tools at your disposal; for me Canva was a game changer.
The second piece of advice given to me as a new organization building up a social media presence is to be very active in your account. Follow lots of accounts that you would want to follow you back. Be active by liking and commenting on their posts very regularly. Eventually, they may pay attention and follow you back and engage. This is the organic way to build up your profile. Takes time and patience.
If you have read this interview till now, please give us a follow on Instagram, and let me know what you think of our content.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.chefangels.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cookingwithlena/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-goldberg-cmp-1292005/
• Other: Other Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chefangelssd/

Image Credits
Nicollee Dietz Carla Toson