Parents are the biggest influence on us growing up. They teach us right and wrong and try to give us every opportunity. My mom worked hard to raise me and my two siblings while working as a high school music director. She was also able to hide financial struggles from us so that we never really know. It was not until after I graduated high school that I learned how tight our financial situation was. She managed to keep a roof over our heads and food in the pantry despite having minimal funds from week to week. To her, it did not matter what financial troubles we faced, her kids and our education always came first. As a band director that often meant extremely long days for my mom and few free weekends. It also meant she had connections with every one of our teachers, which allowed her to keep tabs on how my siblings and I were doing in our classes. This would lead to some not so fun nights at home. There were, of course, upsides to her being a teacher as well. In high school, I got to have lunch with her every day and enjoyed getting free reign over the band hall after school hours. This allowed me to feel closer to her since I got to see her throughout the day. Getting to watch her teach and sometimes even helping with her classes was exciting. It also gave me the desire to teach one day in the future, though not in music education. A standard school education was not the only thing my mom had in mind when raising us. She also wanted us to be contributing members of our community. From assisting with food drives to just mowing our elderly neighbor’s lawn, she would compel us to go out and help whenever and however possible, no matter how much we would moan or complain. It became a yearly tradition to help with an organization called Operation Turkey which helps provide thanksgiving meals to families and people in need. Over time, I began to enjoy service. I started volunteering in my high school’s cafeteria kitchen every day before school started and at the local food bank on weekends sorting through deliveries. Despite any need we might have faced, giving back to those around us elevated our connection to community and awareness of others. Her love of the fine arts and the importance of a proper education have become ingrained in me. I worked hard to graduate high school and get accepted to my first-choice college, and I have not stopped working yet. Along with my classes, I work to earn real world experience from local restaurants and various internships, all to achieve my goals of hopefully owning a restaurant and teaching the next generation. I want to end my career teaching the next generation of chefs at the high school level, just as my mom taught the next generation of musicians. There is so much I want to accomplish with the opportunities and support granted to me. It is my hope that I will be able to continue a path of learning, growth, and outreach to improve myself and benefit those around me and the ones that come after me.

Knives are the most well-known tool in a chef’s arsenal. They must be sharpened often and honed daily for them to maintain their edge. This is also true for any chef. They must constantly sharpen themselves by learning and experimenting, growing not only their bag of tricks but also their creativity, as well as honing their basic skills through constant effort and practice ensuring that they are always ready for their next step. However, there is more to the growth of a chef than just the culinary aspect. We are constantly being brought to the stone at every moment. It is up to us to position ourselves so that we do not become dull or brittle. The first time I realized my passion for cooking happened in middle school when I took a year-end baking class. I felt immense pride in making food to share with my family, even if it did not taste the best. This led me to find the only high school near me that had a culinary program to enroll in. I like to credit this as one of the first times in my life I angled myself to succeed. It helped me to open my eyes to many facets of this industry I never knew about. I felt like I was beginning a new era of my life, but an exceptionally large roadblock soon appeared. On August 23rd at around 9:45 PST, I received some of the worst news you could ever get. My older brother, who was my biggest role model, had taken his own life. Just like that I lost my steel. No matter how much I tried, I could not stop myself from becoming dull. I found myself falling apart weekly. Many of my teachers and advisors thought it would be best if I took the rest of the year off and retry next fall. It was impossible for me to find motivation to do the simplest tasks. Thankfully, that did not last long, and it was all thanks to one last gift from my brother. My brother always believed in my dream. He once invited me to live with him over the summer as his “private chef” which quickly turned into my doing his chores while he was at work. After he passed away, I was lost. That was until we were informed that my brother had a small life insurance policy that was left to me as a college fund. That affirmation was all that I needed to get back on track and realign my blade. In 2 months, I turned my Fs into Bs and higher. Teachers were shocked at my comeback and congratulated me enthusiastically, but I was not done yet. I reached out to local chefs in my area to help mentor me for my culinary capstone project. I was taught in one of their kitchens during service and was able to ace my final. I snowballed this success into getting accepted into my first-choice college and where I am now. My desire to continue sharpening my blade and experiencing everything this industry has to offer has only grown over time. While I do not know all that I want to accomplish with my career, I already have an end goal in mind. Just as many have done for me, I want to help others with the desire to sharpen themselves by returning to my home and becoming the steel that will hone the next generation.

Hi, my name is Tyler Small, and I am currently working toward my degree at Johnson and Wales University. I was born in Tracy, California, a hour from San Francisco, which is where I spent the majority of my early life. What initially drew me to the culinary arts was very simple, good food! I loved to eat as well watch my family eat the food I would make. I was lucky to find a high school near me that had a culinary program which allowed my love for cooking to grow. Unfortunately, my life was turned upside my sophomore year. My brother, my rock and the person I looked up to the most, took his own life. For 3 months I wasn’t able to find the energy or motivation to do school work or go to class. I fell into a hole of laziness and depression which I thought I wouldn’t be able to escape from. I had teachers and counselors advise me to take a gap year because they didn’t think I could recover. However with support from my closet friends and family, I found a new purpose that pushed me to work as hard as I could to pass my classes and graduate on time. My brother was my biggest supporter, always pushing me to work harder and to follow my dreams of becoming a chef. I decided that I would work not just for myself anymore, but for him as well. I threw myself into my studies managing to pull grades from all Fs to As and Bs in the span of a semester. With that memory of his supper burned into my mind I succeeded in graduating on time and getting accepted into one of the most well known culinary schools in the US. I haven’t just focused on school either. I’ve made sure to volunteer whenever possible to help bring a positive impact to my community like making thanksgiving meals for the homeless and less fortunate and volunteering at my local food bank and soup kitchens. Where ever I go, I keep my brother’s memory alive by sharing his story so that people won’t have to go through the pain and hardship I went through. It is my dream to become the chef my brother wanted me to become, to help heal the world through good food, and then go onto support the next generation of chefs and bakers. I want to go out into the world and absorb as much as can so that I can return to where I started and pass my passion and love for cooking to those who come after me.