Pastry chef Claire Burton has just finished lunch service at Create Leeds's King Street restaurant. She's walking on air after a diner tweeted a picture of her triple chocolate brownie, with the caption: "the best dessert I've eaten". "It makes you feel sort of floaty," she says.
Life was not always this way. Eighteen months ago she returned from living abroad with a teenage son, was ineligible for benefits and seemingly unemployable. "I had no friends, no money, nowhere to live." A social worker introduced her to Create Leeds. "As soon as I began the 12-week course here, the clouds lifted," she says.
The course is the backbone of Create. Five years ago, founder Sarah Dunwell was running her own catering firm and volunteering at a local shelter. She sold up and ploughed the funds into a new business, one that offers hands-on training to the homeless. Create was born.
"The kitchen is a fabulous work experience environment," she says. "It's hierarchical and the output is immediate so you know how well you've performed." Then there's the sense of camaraderie. "Sometimes we're dealing with third generation homeless. People who have no idea what work feels like. We show them, then we say: 'Right, you're not an addict, you're not homeless, you're not a criminal. What do you want to be?'"
Two hundred people a year come through Create's programme and 48% will have found work three months after finishing their course. Of the remaining percentage, half will be in work after six months. "One of the things that happens is that ex-trainees get their first job and paypacket and come back and eat in the restaurant as a paying customer," says Dunwell. "I could cry." If Create's social mission doesn't convince you, the menu will. "Foodies love it. We don't care if they care about our social mission, come and taste our food."
