Celebrating 33 New NECAT Grads

NECAT had two exciting graduations this week. Our Everett program celebrated its second class’ completion and NECAT-Boston graduated two classes, for a total of 33 new NECAT graduates. Both were incredible celebrations with family and friends, and excited trained cooks eager to enter the workforce.

Boston held its graduation on the evening of Thursday, August 9, during which time 24 students received their Culinary Arts Certificates. Mitch Devincent was our student speaker. He shared his moving story with the crowd, including the significant role that NECAT has played in turning his life around. “The structure of this course helped me develop habits that not only made me a better employee, but also a better person.” Mitch will be working as a Lead Cook at a new Sodexo site at UMass Boston. We are so proud of him!

Our guest speaker was Ari Kendall of ChikChak Food Truck. Ari shared a little about his journey, passion for the industry and valuable words of wisdom for our “future culinary superstars”, as he called them. We can’t thank him enough for taking the time to join us and look forward to having him back soon for a cooking demo!

Everett’s graduation was held on Wednesday afternoon. We were fortunate enough to have representatives from the Everett Mayor’s office in attendance and the graduates cooked their own incredible brunch feast. We are so proud of their 100% graduation rate!

Mark your calendars for the next graduation on December 6 in Boston, 23 Bradston Street. Dinner at 5:30, ceremony at 6:30. Boston’s legendary Chef Andy Husbands of The Smoke Shop will be our guest speaker.