Fresh Start

Fresh Start trains people incarcerated on Rikers Island with both specific job skills and the life skills they need to stay clean, hold down jobs, and avoid returning to crime. Fresh Start's intensive jail-based program of vocational training and group counseling "on the Island" is balanced by a community-based component that includes support groups, individual guidance, and one-on-one assistance in finding and keeping jobs.

Fresh Start journalism students gain expertise in writing, reporting, computer use and desktop publishing. Fresh Start's culinary arts program, originally established by Osborne Board member Barbara Margolis, is taught with the help of chefs from some of the City's finest restaurants. Students in the journalism program publish the Rikers Review, a magazine distributed throughout the City's jails and in the community. After release, graduates of Fresh Start's culinary arts program have the opportunity to earn the highly marketable New York City Food Handler's License.

Recent graduates of the culinary arts program have found entry-level work as pot washers, prep cooks, and catering assistants, and many have moved up to chef positions in restaurants and institutional kitchens. Several of the journalism program graduates have published articles and essays in New York City magazines and newspapers. Graduates from both programs have gone on to become counselors at substance abuse programs, helping others to build the drug-and crime-free lives that they have achieved.