Throughout the past month, we checked in with our 2025 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation. [Find each of their stories here.]

Eastmont Community Center received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation to support its Community Kitchen workforce model, which creates culinary training and entrepreneurship pathways for older adults and adults with disabilities. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

Interview Participants:

Elizabeth Cervantes, Assistant Director Programs

Zeena Chokbengboun, Development Manager

Hadi Vasquez, Program Manager

LA2050: Eastmont Community Center’s Community Kitchen is creating workforce pathways for older adults and adults with disabilities through culinary training and entrepreneurship. How does this model help address income inequality while reimagining the role of older adults in the local economy?

Eastmont Community Center: Our Community Kitchen model addresses income inequality by expanding access to income-generating opportunities for an aging population that is often overlooked. In unincorporated East Los Angeles, many older adults, including adults with disabilities, rely on fixed incomes such as Social Security, and for many, that income is not enough to cover basic household needs. Retirement is not always a realistic option, yet traditional employment pathways often become less accessible over time because of age discrimination, physical limitations, and health-related barriers. Our model responds directly to that gap by creating more flexible pathways for people to earn additional income while building on the skills they already have. Many of the older adults in the program bring deep experience in cooking and food preparation, rooted in cultural knowledge, caregiving, and personal or professional experience, and the Community Kitchen is designed to treat those strengths as assets rather than overlook them.

The model also reflects our broader view of what older adults contribute to the local economy and community. In many Latino communities, food is a primary way people care for one another, show gratitude, and give back. By centering culinary training and entrepreneurship, we are not only responding to an income gap, but also reimagining older adults as community members with valuable knowledge, experience, and economic potential. Our Community Kitchen creates space for that value to be recognized and strengthened in a way that feels culturally familiar, affirming, and rooted in community.

LA2050: Your work centers on a population often overlooked in traditional workforce development programs. What challenges have you encountered in engaging and supporting older adults in these pathways, and what successes have you seen in building confidence, skills, and income opportunities?

Eastmont Community Center: At this stage, Eastmont’s Community Kitchen workforce pathways are still in early implementation, and one of the primary challenges has been building trust and confidence. Many older adults have spent decades in physically demanding, low-wage roles where they were valued mainly for labor, not given opportunities to learn, grow, or explore new pathways. Re-entering a training environment can therefore feel unfamiliar and intimidating, especially for individuals who have had limited access to skill-building resources over time. Helping participants see themselves in new roles, whether as trainees, entrepreneurs, or contributors to a shared kitchen model, takes intentional relationship-building and a supportive environment.

At the same time, we have already seen meaningful signs of success. When the environment shifts away from pressure and performance and instead centers existing strengths such as food traditions, cultural knowledge, and lived experience, older adults respond with pride, joy, and a renewed sense of purpose. We have already engaged older adults as volunteers preparing and cooking meals during community events, and that experience has helped participants feel valued and recognized for what they bring. We see that sense of belonging as deeply connected to participants’ emotional well-being, confidence, and overall quality of life. In that way, the Community Kitchen is not only creating future income pathways, but already showing how older adults can build confidence and connection by contributing in ways that matter to them and their community.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

Eastmont Community Center: In the final six months of the grant, we are focused on strengthening the foundation of the Community Kitchen workforce model so that implementation can move forward successfully. As the project has progressed, the timeline has been adjusted to align with current priorities and readiness, giving our organization time to refine the program design, begin developing the culinary training curriculum, collaborate with industry partners, and prepare its team to provide high-quality training and support. In the months ahead, our priority is to complete curriculum development, finalize partnerships, and ensure the program is positioned so participants can move into training, paid opportunities, and entrepreneurship support without further delay.

The broader LA2050 community can support this work through connections and partnership. We are especially interested in introductions to partners in food and hospitality, as well as workforce and small business resources that align with the program’s goals. We are also intentionally seeking support in identifying a qualified professor who can help develop a culturally relevant, bilingual culinary curriculum tailored to older adults and adults with disabilities, as well as an experienced instructor who can provide hands-on culinary training once implementation begins. More broadly, support from funders and partners aligned with workforce development, aging populations, and small business support would help strengthen the program’s long-term success and impact.

Photo Credit: Eastmont Community Center