Breaking Out | Brandon Chrostowski | TEDxHunting Valley

Nationally, two-thirds of people released from prison are rearrested within three years. At EDWINS, the number is a fraction of that. Chef Brandon Chrostowski shares the engine behind it: nobody is asked what they did, only who they want to become, and every base need, from an ID to housing to childcare, is covered. Same human, same prison, different engine, different result. Brandon Chrostowski trained as a chef and sommelier in Paris, New York, and Chicago before founding EDWINS Leadership and Restaurant Institute in Cleveland, which gives formerly incarcerated adults free culinary and hospitality training alongside housing, childcare, a fitness center, a butcher shop, a bakery, and a diner. Its tablet-based curriculum now reaches prisons in 49 states with more than 70,000 graduates, and its alumni return to prison at a fraction of the national rate. He is a CNN Hero and a James Beard Impact Award honoree, and the documentary about his work, Knife Skills, was nominated for an Academy Award. His talk, “Breaking Out,” starts on a Paris park bench the night before his first shift at a three-Michelin-star restaurant, and builds to the question EDWINS asks instead of “what did you do?”: who do you want to become? This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx