This Summer, ELF was proud collaborate and fund a 2-week intensive pilot program for 13 high school students. A guest instructor from Chef Emeril’s alma mater Johnson and Wales University taught the session.

New Orleans Center for Creative Arts (NOCCA) is seeking to add a four-year Culinary Arts program to its specialized arts curriculum. In the school’s over 30 year history, each time it has added a discipline, it started as a pilot program in the June Intensive session.

The NOCCA Institute and The Emeril Lagasse Foundation entered into a collaboration with Johnson and Wales University, an esteemed leader in the field of culinary arts instruction. Through a financial grant, site selection, and program preparation, ELF was proud to be a part of this unique program.

Chef Instructor Scott Parker from Providence, R.I., adapted an existing high school curriculum to this intensive 2 week format, and he traveled to New Orleans to teach the program.Interested high school students from the Greater New Orleans Area applied through the rigorous NOCCA audition process. Once selected for the program, they diligently studied cooking methods and practiced techniques in both hands-on and lecture settings while on-site in a professional kitchen at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. Their final exam was a cooking practicum.

The New Orleans Center for Creative Arts|Riverfront is a world-class educational institution that has been changing the lives of young people since 1973. Every year, this pre-professional arts training center provides intensive instruction in dance, media arts, music (classical, jazz, vocal), theatre arts (drama, musical theatre, theatre design), visual arts, and creative writing, to students from public, private, and parochial schools across Louisiana through schoolday, after-school, weekend, and summer sessions.

Filed Under: Emeril Lagasse Foundation