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Boston students learn ‘knife skills and life skills’ at Future Chefs in Roxbury

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Boston students learn ‘knife skills and life skills’ at Future Chefs in Roxbury


ROXBURY – Showing guests around the Future Chefs space in Roxbury, founder Toni Elka is beaming with pride.

“I would never have thought that I could do this. And I—alone—did not do this. I had an idea,” Elka said.

That idea became what is now a thriving program for Boston Public School students who learn life skills using food as the medium. Originally a program to prepare teenagers for careers in the culinary industry, Elka said Future Chefs is now for all students who are open to project-based learning and interested in developing skills they will use far beyond the kitchen.

“We have a leadership ladder,” she said. “So you’re not learning the same thing in year two and year three. You start to find out what your particular skills are and you move into those opportunities that we make possible here.” 

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A THERAPEUTIC PLACE

Most of the students who enroll in Future Chefs are referred by friends, teachers, school counselors or parents. There are 43 teenagers involved in the summer program. They commit to 24 hours a week and get paid for their time. 

The money comes from the City of Boston and the program’s fundraising efforts. Students pay nothing to attend. During the school year, they are in the program for 8-10 hours a week – enough time to learn and connect with other kids in a supportive environment.

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Members of the Future Chefs program.

CBS Boston

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At a time when young people describe feeling disassociated from peers because of “screen time” and mental health challenges, Future Chefs offers immersive, hands-on learning.

“It becomes a therapeutic and mindful place for young people. So the trauma of your school day, or your particular life, falls away as you come into really deep focus on the thing that you’re doing,” Elka said.

It is the kind of program Elka wishes had been available when she was a kid. As a low-income, high-risk high school student who almost didn’t graduate, she said that she was full of potential that no one recognized. 

“Everything at Future Chefs is geared toward making sure that never happens to a young person that walks in here through our doors,” Elka said.

OPENING DOORS

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Elka is a MassArt graduate, an artist who by her own admission had vision but no idea how to fundraise for a non-profit or manage a staff.  

Seeking that knowledge in Future Chefs’ early days, she enrolled in a year-long certificate program at Boston University in non-profit management and leadership. 

She realized that, although she had never called herself an entrepreneur, that is exactly what she was and what she had always been. She launched Future Chefs with a $200,000 annual budget just before the 2008 recession. 

When the economy crashed, years of resilience served her well. She kept the program going on the slimmest of margins until she could build on its success. Today, Future Chefs operates on a $1.9 million budget and offers year-round instruction in a beautiful Blue Hill Avenue space that opened during the pandemic. 

“If you’re doing the thing you’re supposed to do, doors are going to open for you,” Elka said. 

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CONFIDENCE TRANSLATES TO THE CLASSROOM

Incredibly, most of the students chopping vegetables and whisking marinades were only days into the program. Grouped in small teams, they prepared full meals in the Chop Challenge, a timed competition. 

Judges included professional chefs, advanced Future Chefs students and special guests including Alexandra Valdez, the Executive Director of Mayor Wu’s Office of Women’s Advancement.

No matter which team wins, all of the students applaud for one another. Most of them don’t know anyone in the program when they join, but friendships form quickly. Before the cooking begins, they gather around a table to talk about what’s bugging them and what they’re grateful for. 

“What happens here for every student is that they become a part of a community of people that are learning and growing,” Elka said.

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With instructors who become mentors, they have a place to gain mastery. Elka explained that it becomes a kind of muscle memory. You learn something, practice, and master it. Experiencing success in that process teaches students to trust themselves and their abilities. 

The confidence they develop at Future Chefs serves them in the future and often improves their academic performance. 

“It’s a way of getting your mind ready to learn,” Elka said. 

Elka also pointed out that for students who ultimately pursue culinary careers, the program facilitates valuable networking opportunities and problem-solving.

“They’re able to step up an say, ‘I can do this’ and negotiate for a decent salary. And if the culture is toxic in the kitchen, they can talk about why it is and figure out what to do about it,” Elka said.

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“KNIFE SKILLS AND LIFE SKILLS”

Advania Veiga, a sophomore at Boston Latin Academy, said she was shy and nervous when she enrolled in Future Chefs a year ago. She credits the program for teaching her “knife skills and life skills” and helping her become comfortable speaking up.

“I was really nervous talking in big groups of people. Even small groups of people. But I’ve totally learned to put that aside,” Veiga said. 

She is particularly excited about the pop-up restaurant the students will open and run next month.  

Veiga was part of the last summer’s pop-up which received rave reviews from patrons. Students are responsible for planning the lunch and dinner menus, taking the orders and making the food. 

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This year’s pop-up will run on August 9-10 in the Future Chefs space at 305 Blue Hill Avenue. 

LEARNING KEY LIFE SKILLS

In the last minutes of the Chop Challenge, Elka watched young people who are focused, engaged and energized.

“The dream was that this room would be filled with young people doing their thing. And they are!” Elka said. 

With praise for her instructors, she is quick to point out that the dream is only possible with teamwork — one of the key life skills students learn in the program. 

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“It’s a social contract to be here for our young people. We all need to do it together. And this is a gathering place for that,” she said. “It’s wonderful.”



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Boston, MA

Fan ejected from Connecticut Sun game in Boston

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Fan ejected from Connecticut Sun game in Boston


BOSTON ― A fan sitting courtside was ejected from the Connecticut Sun game at TD Garden on Tuesday night.

After a timeout just over midway through the second quarter, a male fan wearing a Caitlin Clark Indiana Fever shirt was removed from his seat after a verbal interaction with Sun guard Saniya Rivers, who was standing near the fan to inbound the ball.

Rivers requested for the fan to be removed after disclosing what had been said to the referees and arena staff.

“I won’t get into what he said, but if you know me, I’m not taking any type of disrespect,” Rivers said after the game. “So if it’s a form of a threat, whatever it is, you’re out of there.

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“I just knew that I could use my power in that moment because I’m not taking any disrespect… it just sucks because he wasted all that money on a courtside seat, just to say one thing — it didn’t even bother me because I still produced, so it is what it is.”

Sun players and staff quickly pulled Rivers away from the initial interaction after seeing her distress. Connecticut fans cheered and celebrated as the fan was escorted out by arena security.

“All of Connecticut in the crowd had my back, the team had my back (and) the coaches,” Rivers said.

Rivers had eight points, two steals, three assists and five rebounds in 29 minutes for Connecticut.

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Alison Croney Moses, a Boston artist dedicated to bringing Black motherhood to light, wins de Cordova Museum’s $50,000 Rappaport Prize – The Boston Globe

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Alison Croney Moses, a Boston artist dedicated to bringing Black motherhood to light, wins de Cordova Museum’s ,000 Rappaport Prize – The Boston Globe


The email came last week, said Alison Croney Moses, an invitation to a Zoom chat with Trustees of Reservations’ art curators Sarah Montross and Tess Lukey. Moses, a Boston-based artist, was happy enough to hear from them, but didn’t know why.

“You don’t say no when a curator wants to talk to you,” she laughed. They exchanged small talk for a while, and then they got down to business. “At about the seven minute mark, they said, ‘So, you’re getting the Rappaport Prize, and it comes with $50,000.’ I didn’t submit anything. I didn’t apply. And I just started crying.”

Croney Moses, 42, was officially named the 26th recipient of the prize Tuesday, given annually by the de Cordova Sculpture Park and Museum, a Trustees property, to an artist with strong New England ties (last year, the Maine-based artist Jeremy Frey was the winner; in 2023, it was Cambridge’s Tomashi Jackson).

Alison Croney Moses, who works mostly in wood, carefully manipulates a scale model of her Triennial project earlier this year. Lane Turner/Globe Staff

Moses was already having a banner year. Her piece called “This Moment for Joy,” an angular splay of undulating planks of red oak commissioned by the inaugural Boston Public Art Triennial, is perched prominently on an expanse of lawn at the Charlestown Navy Yard right now, in eyeshot of the U.S.S. Constitution Museum. In August, she’ll be one of the artists featured in the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston’s Foster Prize exhibition, a biennial affair that celebrates artists from the city .

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Outward appearances of success, though, can be misleading. Moses, who balances her art career with the active lives of her two young children, has struggled to find space and time to pursue her work. The prize, she said, is like a pressure valve being released. “Honestly, I really was in tears,” she said. “It’s hard to tell from the outside, because I know it looks like I’m doing very well, but financially, being an artist in Boston is difficult. It’s really, really difficult. This gives me space to breathe.”

The timing of the prize could hardly have come at a better time. Moses, whose work is largely sculpture, and mosly in wood, has only been able to devote herself full-time to making art in the last two years; before that, she had a 10-year career working in non-proifts, leaving art to brief slivers of time in the evening and on weekends, when work and parenting weren’t in the way.

Alison Croney Moses, left, and Izaiah Rhodes, her assistant, working on her Triennial commission in her Boston studio this year.TONY LUONG/NYT

The prize places no restrictions on how the money can be used, and does not require artists to produce a piece or body of work. On a follow-up call with the Rappaport family, the local philanthropists who fund the prize, Moses made clear both her gratitude and how important a no-strings-attached gift can be for any artist.

“Any time I’ve had access to unrestricted funding, it’s given me the opportunity to get deeper into my practice, “she said. ”Literally, right before that Zoom call, I was looking at job postings, really thinking: Do I need a full-time job again? Something like this tells me: You are an artist. You should be doing this. And that’s huge.”

One thing the prize can no longer provide, unfortunately, is the winner being given a solo exhibition at the de Cordova, which it did for many years. The museum has been closed since 2023 for an overhaul of its HVAC system (the last was Sonia Clark in 2021). But Moses is already thinking about how her newfound freedom might transform her practice.

An exhibition of some of Alison Croney Moses’s work at the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston.Mel Taing

Thematically, she’s devoted: “This Moment for Joy,” a minimalist cocoon that ripples and curls into a protective embrace, is a monument to the warmth of the Black women in her life who inspire and support her; using elegant wood forms, Moses means to honor Black motherhood and interrogate a society that has made it perilous and undervalued for generations.

The prize, she said, is opening her mind to expansive treatments on the theme. A project she’s been mulling involving sound and video – both firsts for her, and a real risk to attempt with bills to pay – now seems possible. “Right now, I work deadline to deadline,” she said. “I don’t ever feel like I’m really able to dream and experiment. Now, I can.”

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Alison Croney Moses’s “This Moment for Joy,” a project of the Boston Public Art Triennial, remains at the Charlestown Navy Yard, 1 – 5th St., through Oct. 31.

The Foster Prize exhibition opens August 28 at the Institute for Contemporary Art Boston, 25 Harbor Shore Drive.


Murray Whyte can be reached at murray.whyte@globe.com. Follow him @TheMurrayWhyte.





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Indiana Fever All-Star Aliyah Boston joins Boston Legacy FC investor group

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Indiana Fever All-Star Aliyah Boston joins Boston Legacy FC investor group


Indiana Fever forward and NCAA champion Aliyah Boston is investing in Boston Legacy FC, the NWSL club announced Monday, joining an investment group that includes gymnast Aly Raisman, actress Elizabeth Banks and Celtics general manager Brad Stevens and his wife, Tracy.

Boston, 28, fell in love with basketball in the U.S. Virgin Islands before she moved to Massachusetts when she was 12 years old and played high school basketball at Worcester Academy, where she was named Gatorade Player of the Year three times. Her No. 00 jersey was the first ever to be retired by the school.

“I’m proud to join the ownership group of the Boston Legacy,” Boston said in a statement. “This city helped raise me, and the support I felt here shaped so much of who I am. I couldn’t be more excited to have the opportunity to invest into a franchise that’s building something special for its players, for the city, and for women’s sports as a whole.

“And yes,” she said, “Boston repping Boston just felt right!”

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Aliyah Boston won the NCAA Championship with the South Carolina Gamecocks in 2022. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)

The South Carolina alumnae won an NCAA championship with the Gamecocks in 2022, her junior year. The following year, the Indiana Fever took her with the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft. Boston was named Rookie of the Year and has made the WNBA All-Star roster each season she’s played professionally. Boston also played for Vinyl BC in the inaugural season of the Unrivaled basketball league.

“Aliyah’s investment in our club demonstrates the strength of women’s sports as our two leagues — the WNBA and NWSL — continue to grow and expand,” said Legacy controlling owner Jennifer Epstein in a statement.

“She is a proven winner who understands what it takes to build a championship team, and her presence in our investor group brings an invaluable athlete perspective. It’s an exciting time to see professional female athletes help shape the future of global women’s sports,” Epstein added.

Boston’s Fever teammate, Caitlin Clark, previously joined a Cincinnati-based ownership group looking to bring an NWSL expansion team to that city. The bid ultimately failed in favor of the group in Denver.

The Legacy’s announcement of Boston’s involvement as an investor comes days after the club made striker Aïssata Traoré its second signing, contracting her through the 2028 season as the first player from Mali to compete in the NWSL. She, like their first signing Annie Karich, will play on loan until preseason begins in January.

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On June 25, the Legacy named Filipa Patão its inaugural head coach. Patão comes to Boston from Lisbon, where she managed the Portuguese side Benfica for five years.

(Top photo: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)



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