This past weekend, two young Virgin Islanders embarked on a chance of a lifetime internship with Facebook Executive Chefs at the social media Mega Corporation in prestigious Silicon Valley. For 21 year olds Aaron Tutein and Denika Boyd, both former students of The St. Croix Career and Technical Center (CTEC) Culinary Program, the opportunity is a dream come true.

Their internship is the result of a meeting with Facebook Culinary Executive Chef & Director, Josef DeSimone, and his team of executive chefs who participated in the 2013 St. Croix Food and Wine Experience. The chefs spent a week working with young people from CTEC, mentoring the burgeoning young cooks for the annual Sunset BBQ event on the Frederiksted Pier. Chef DeSimone formed a strong connection with the CTEC students and, in turn, handpicked Aaron and Denika to attend a two week internship in Facebook’s corporate kitchen.

Upon Chef Josef DeSimone’s return to California after the 2013 St. Croix Food and Wine Experience, he also pledged to continue his relationship with CTEC and help train culinary students. Sadly, just two weeks later, Josef passed away in a tragic motorcycle accident. In memoriam of his commitment to young people, his brother Billy DeSimone, and colleagues, Tony Castellucci and Dean Spinks, made Josef’s vision a reality. Remaining in direct contact with the St. Croix Foundation, Facebook Chefs Castellucci and Spinks committed to fulfilling Josef’s promise of providing a career boosting opportunity for St. Croix youth. Billy, Josef’s brother (also a chef) went on to establish the Josef DeSimone Giving the Dream Memorial Foundation, which will begin providing scholarships to aspiring young chefs in 2015.

Located in San Francisco Bay Area, Facebook’s headquarters is in northern California’s Silicon Valley, home to many of the world’s largest technology corporations and thousands of small startups, including a large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers for the United States’ high-technology sector.

Prior to their departure on Sunday, February 23rd, Aaron and Denika were sized for chef jackets and readying themselves to study under the tutelage of Executive Chefs at Facebook’s California Headquarters. St. Croix Foundation staff provided the interns modern computer tablets and installed contact information and other critical information based apps to facilitate their travel and success. In addition to technical support, staff assisted the interns with building professional resumes and cover letters and coached them on interview skills. According to Deanna James, Chief Operations Officer of the Foundation, “We are so proud of these two young people, and we have confidence that they understand this opportunity means more than just what it can do for them individually. It is affording them the chance to be role models for other Virgin Islanders who aspire to part of this global environment.”

Students will be provided with a rigorous curriculum in which they will strengthen their culinary skills ranging from learning kitchen etiquette and creating innovative recipes to wielding chef knives with precision. Aaron believes the opportunity will be a life changing event: “Cooking, to me, in one word means, ‘Life.’ I’m ecstatic to have this privilege to intern at Facebook– this is a next step up the ladder for me, and I thank the Facebook Culinary Team and the St. Croix Foundation.”

Denika said of her experience, “It was a great opportunity to work with Chef Josef. I only wish that I’d had more time so that I could have learned more from him. He encouraged me to move forward with my culinary career, and I thank him and Chef Anton Doos (CTEC Culinary Instructor) for that. It is even more exciting to intern at Facebook.”

Roger Dewey, President of the Foundation, stated that, “As the St. Croix Foundation’s annual fundraiser, the St. Croix Food & Wine Experience funds critical projects focusing on public education reform, public safety, and community & economic development. We also estimate that this event series has brought nearly 4 million dollars of economic activity into the US Virgin Islands economy since its inception.” He continued, “This event is the catalyst that nets positive benefits for the Virgin Islands as evidenced by this partnership with Facebook.”

Named as one of the top 10 food and wine festivals in the world by Forbestravel.com, the St. Croix Food and Wine Experience is a weeklong event series that began with its anchor event, A Taste of St. Croix in 2001. With 14 events that range from kids cooking classes to elegant private dinners to barbeques on the waterfront, the 2014 theme is “Culinary Futures” and it aims to promote the future of St. Croix’s diverse and expert culinary industry, including showcasing and supporting St. Croix’s younger talent pool. As their newest 365 Project, A Taste of St. Croix built the St. Croix Culinary Juniors, a team of four seventh and eighth grade students who will learn the basics of a kitchen, be trained by a St. Croix Executive Chef Gary Klinefelter, and cook with celebrity Chef Todd Gray, First Lady Michelle Obama’s favorite chef, at the 2014 St. Croix Food and Wine Experience. The project serves to complement existing programs and helps create a pipeline of opportunities to interest, engage, and prepare St. Croix youth for a career in the culinary arts. Katherine Pugliese, Co Founder of A Taste of St. Croix, believes that these experiences lead to opportunities like internships at Facebook and stated that, “We are very fortunate to have known Josef. He saw talent here on St. Croix that might have never been brought to light. It is our hope that these students continue his legacy of the love of food, people, and giving back to their community.”

St. Croix Foundation and A Taste of St. Croix are still seeking partners to fund this extraordinary opportunity, asking corporate citizens and community members to band together to sponsor Aaron and Denika’s travel and hotel stay for their culinary internship at Facebook.

The St. Croix Foundation would like to thank A Taste of St. Croix, Facebook and their extraordinary Culinary Team, Watkins PR, the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Education Foundation, Kazi Management, TEAM Consultants, the Career and Technical Education Center, and Chef Anton Doos.

To support this and other worthwhile efforts of the St. Croix Foundation, contact at 340-773-9898 or visit their www.stxfoundation.org. The Foundation will also be following Denika and Aaron on their Facebook page. For more information on the 2014 St. Croix Food and Wine Experience visit Stcroixfoodandwine.com.

Results at a Glance, Full Results, Press Release

Contact:Leslie Hamdorf
YAC Team Leader, St. Croix Foundation

St. CROIX FOUNDATION YOUTH ADVISORY COUNCIL RELEASES “ANSWERS FOR CHANGE” SURVEY RESULTS

The St. Croix Foundation Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is pleased to release the results of their revealing youth survey, entitled “Answers for Change.” The survey was developed entirely by YAC members to gain information from their peers about the challenges facing youth in their community.

The 44 question survey addresses issues surrounding school climate, school safety, future academic plans, and personal motivators, and was distributed to private and public schools on St. Croix. In total, over 900 surveys were tallied during the spring of 2012.
The Youth Advisory Council, which was created by the St. Croix Foundation in 2009, is a youth philanthropy group made up of 16 students from St. Croix private and public middle and high schools. The Council was founded with the express goals of engaging youth and teaching them about the importance of philanthropy and charitable giving, as well as civic awareness. Today, YAC serves as a platform for burgeoning youth leaders to assess and address the needs of their peers through various outreach initiatives.
YAC members believe that the results from their survey will serve to illuminate the needs, aspirations, and challenges of young people in the community. The results will also help the Council and the Foundation direct their future efforts toward more relevant supports for young people and for their schools.

While the overall results from the survey were very informative, some responses were particularly revealing. One question asked students whether school was valuable to them. 59% of students in public high school responded that yes, school was valuable to them, compared to 93% of private high school students.

In another question which addressed the issue of school safety, 80% of private high school students said they felt safe compared to 41% of their public school peers. However, when private high school students were asked how they dealt with stress, the responses indicated that 13% drank, 22% smoked, and 21% used drugs, in contrast to public high school students who responded with lower levels of drug, alcohol and tobacco use. Public middle school students also reported in the ‘Answers for Change’ survey that 12% considered dropping out of school.
Overall, the survey revealed that there are some incredible opportunities within our public middle schools to sustain what appears to be higher levels of student engagement while at the same time addressing some potentially serious social trends that may lead students to lose focus and in turn fall out of the system in high school.

YAC members believe that the entire survey should be of interest to parents and educators alike. According to YAC member, Chasen Richards, “In high school, priorities get confused and life starts to happen. In high school, students are also exposed to more- both at school and in the media. Additionally, there is a bigger age range at high school, and kids are exploring things and rebelling if they can. They also don’t have the same support or the focus anymore.”

After reviewing the questions about support, YAC member Kemit Sweeney said, “Students lack a connection between their daily lives and the theoretical knowledge from school. When they don’t find it, they drop off the radar.” YAC members believe that their survey has given youth on St. Croix a voice and through collaborative efforts from community stakeholders, targeted steps can be taken to prevent youth from dropping off the radar and out of the system.

Over the past three years, the Foundation’s Youth Advisory Council has been very busy. In addition to the survey, they have awarded grants to various youth-based community projects and earlier this year, they hosted a highly successful Youth Forum, entitled “Turning Problems into Possibilities.”

Moving forward, YAC members will be using the data collected from their survey to develop a Youth Network, which will entail a resource clearinghouse for youth providing career development, as well as mentoring and social supports. They have already begun to reach out to other youth groups in the Territory inviting them to join forces to prove that youth have the ability to mobilize for positive causes to make a positive difference in their community. YAC members wish to extend their heart-felt thanks to the Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority for their assistance in tallying the surveys. The Council is also grateful to Mr. Boatang of The University of the Virgin Islands Extension Services for allowing them to meet regularly in their building. Additional thanks go out to Mr. Gary Molloy and Ms. Janine Schuster of the Virgin Islands Department of Education for providing the Department’s support for the survey. The Youth Advisory Council also expresses their thanks to the St. Croix Foundation Matt Miller Fund and the Miller family for their ongoing support and guidance.

Last but certainly not least, YAC extends a sincere thank you to all of the students who participated in the survey from the following schools: St. Croix Educational Complex, St. Croix Central High School, John H. Woodson Junior High School, Elena L. Christian Junior High School, St. Mary’s Catholic School, Free Will Baptist School, Arthur Richards Elementary School, Country Day School, and Good Hope School. Student responses are greatly appreciated and will remain as a guiding factor in the projects that YAC undertakes this year.
Survey results can be found on the St. Croix Foundation’s website at www.stxfoundation.org. And, for more information about the Council email YAC at scfyac2009@yahoo.com or contact the St. Croix Foundation at 340-773-9898.

SCF Youth Advisory Council Students Respond to “Answers for Change” Survey Results

“The St. Croix Foundation Youth Advisory Council is grateful for the articles that were published in The Daily News on Monday, September 17, 2012 and The St. Croix Avis on Thursday, September 20 about the results of our Answers for Change Survey…” for full press release on Answers for Change.

 Grantmakers for Education, Press Release

Contact: Deanna James, Chief Operations Officer
August 9, 2012

St. CROIX FOUNDATION COORDINATING VI DELEGATION FOR EDUCATION REFORM CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK

The St. Croix Foundation is currently coordinating a small delegation of local education stakeholders to attend the 2012 Annual Grantmakers for Education (GFE) Conference entitled, “Rethink, Reframe, Redesign Education” in New York City, October 23-26th.

Considered by many to be one of the most dynamic and informative forums on transformational educational models, GFE is a ‘membership organization for private and public philanthropies that support improved educational outcomes for students’. Founded in 1995, GFE seeks to ‘promote dialogue, inquiry and learning to strengthen practice within the field of education philanthropy’. Each year, their annual conference convenes representatives from the largest educational funders in the country including the Bill and Melinda Gates, Nellie Mae, Cleveland and Annie E. Casey Foundations to share experiences; to assess which reform models are working (and which ones aren’t); and to refine strategies.
As a GFE member for the past four years, St. Croix Foundation made the decision to coordinate a VI delegation to the conference this year, with the express goal of building capacity and consensus among local stakeholders around which reform models are right for our community.
Recognizing the critical nature of the challenges before the Territory today, the Foundation’s ultimate goal is to hasten the pace of education reform in order to ensure that the Virgin Islands is adequately preparing our youth to navigate through the tenuous economic conditions before them- both locally and globally.

Increasingly inspired by the body of work that is presented each year at the annual conference, the Foundation hopes this year’s conference will expose local stakeholders to progressive educational strategies that are transforming public schools throughout the country.

With many of GFE’s members currently underwriting the lion’s share of funding costs for some of the most innovative and successful school reform models today, the featured sessions and site visits are always a major highlight of the conference each year. This year’s conference is expected to be particularly exciting because it’s being held in New York City and will feature site visits to several bold educational models, including the nationally renowned Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ). Recognized by The New York Times as “one of the most ambitious social-service experiments of our time,” HCZ is a comprehensive system of programs over a 100 block radius in Central Harlem that aims to keep children on track from the cradle to college and on to the job market.

Another site visit that will be offered at the GFE Conference is the New American Academy (NAA), which was created in partnership with the United Federation of Teachers, the New York Department of Education, and The Harvard Graduate School of Education. NAA represents a visionary approach to education wherein ‘teachers work in collaborative teams of four to lead a typical classroom of 60 students in small, differentiated groups. The academy currently serves students in kindergarten and first grade.’
While only a handful of slots have been allotted for the St. Croix Foundation’s delegation, invitations have already been extended to members of the Board of Education, the Department of Education, the CTEC Board and the St. Croix Federation of Teachers as well as several other key education stakeholders.

According to Deanna James, Chief Operations Officer of the Foundation, “We are deeply encouraged by the response we’ve received thus far from stakeholders as most of the slots for our very small delegation have already been filled.” James went on to state that “The Foundation truly believes that the GFE conference has the potential to bridge philosophical and political divides that have prevented our community from making real headway in our attempts to improve our educational system.”
As the Foundation seeks to strengthen their community-based work in education, they believe the GFE conference presents a ripe opportunity for deeper engagement and for greater collaboration among all educational stakeholders irrespective of their individual focus areas. The Foundation also sees the conference as a way to segue from individual agendas and pervasive distrust to real cooperation and synergy.
Invited guests will be responsible for covering their conference costs, and because the conference is a ‘members only’ industry event, guests will have to be registered through the Foundation’s membership account.

For more information on the GFE Conference or on the Foundation’s educational programming, please call the St. Croix Foundation at 340-773-9898.