SPOKANE, Wash. — Fresh Soul has been a staple in the East Central community for the last five years. On Saturday, they celebrated a special group of people.
Michael Brown's a man of many talents. He's the owner of fresh soul in Spokane's East Central neighborhood.
"I always wanted to give back and, I mean, I couldn't think of a better way to get back and helping these youth," Brown said.
But his greatest accomplishment isn't his restaurant.
He said, "A life skills job training program that serves youth between the ages of 14 to 18 years old."
Brown cooked up Fresh Soul as a space to train teenagers in the work force and for higher education.
"We can help them get jobs they need," said Brown. "They want to go to college, we can help get into college."
On Saturday, Brown celebrated his most recent cohort. Some say the program changes lives, including Michaela Daou.
"I see it now very clear that if you want to do something, you should do it and stick with it," said Daou, who's in the program.
Daou's one of the four teens in the current cohort. She says she's learned more in 12 weeks than anywhere else.
"It really teaches me how to have good customer service. It also teaches me how to solve problems in the workspace and especially in a restaurant," Daou said.
For Aleyiah Wakan, she says her expectations were exceeded: "I thought things were gonna go a little different, but they ended up being a lot better than I expected. They taught me so many, like self values."
And at Saturday's graduation, the graduates got a little surprise.
"One of our donors set up a fund through the Novia foundation where they want to get every kid that graduates my program, college scholarships," Brown said.
The scholarship are $5,000 for each person. Brown says even though his students graduated, he'll be with them forever.
"The skills they learn here, they will use it for the rest of their lives," Brown said. "They won't forget what they learn here."
Brown says that the job training program has run for five years strong. They'll bring in their next cohort on Sept. 11.