This year, Sharp started working with the inspirational nonprofit, Careers through Culinary Arts Program (C-CAP), which provides underserved youth with high school cooking programs, scholarships ($40 million and counting), internships and career guidance. We were proud to promote their 2014 Annual Benefit on March 4th at Chelsea Piers in NYC, honoring chef Michael White.The grand tasting is a perfect representation of the important work that C-CAP does every day, pairing 40 well-known NYC chefs with 60 C-CAP high school students to serve delicious food to 800 attendees.
Each chef, including Daniel Boulud and Marcus Samuelsson, personally served their signature dish to the delight of all attendees. Guests were also amazed by the creative cuisine from C-CAP grads that have risen to prominence, such as Thiago Silva, Pastry Chef at The General and Kelvin Fernandez, Executive Chef of the recently opened Blend on the Water.
Sharp secured targeted New York media coverage leading up to the event and invited key media to attend the event in order to speak with chefs, C-CAP executives and alumni, taste the food and let their readers know about this important organization. Media attendees included Haute Living, Zagat, NBC, AP and Food Arts.
The event was a huge success, raising $1 million for C-CAP – the highest of any year. The highlight from the auction was the intense bidding wars for private dinners cooked by Michael White or by Marcus Samuelsson for 16 people. Bidders paid a total of $80,000 for the dinners, helping fund additional programming for C-CAP students in the years to come.
Next up for Sharp is promoting C-CAP's annual cooking competition, where students cook an entrée and dessert from memory in an intense restaurant-setting, helping to determine their scholarship amounts.To learn more about the important work from this great non-profit, visit www.ccapinc.org.
