Life skills with a side of kale: Helping homeless youth one salad at a time

When Josh Saurbier’s disabled mother died in the hospital six years ago, he didn’t know what would come next. They had been homeless, sometimes living in motels, sometimes at the side of a Los Angeles freeway.

Now he was all alone.

At the hospital, a social worker handed him a number for a shelter that offers young people who are homeless a safe place to sleep. So he checked in.

At an event there a few months later, he met Erik Oberholtzer, at the time chief executive officer of the restaurant chain Tender Greens, who would soon give him an opportunity that changed the trajectory of his life.

“Erik was literally one of the