Alexandra’s ingredients for success

L ong before the kitchen became Alexandra Miller’s launching pad, learning to cook was her refuge from life’s early challenges.

Alexandra’s difficult birth led to an immune deficiency, severely limiting the kind of food she could eat. Numerous infections and illnesses followed, affecting her hearing and speech. At age 4, she was diagnosed with autism.

As Alexandra’s health hurdles grew, the day-to-day struggle with what she could eat remained an ever-present problem. No dairy, no gluten meant she couldn’t join in on the pizza and cake other kids enjoyed at birthday parties. Her limited menu options made most restaurants and takeout off-limits. As she approached adolescence, food restrictions became one more thing that made Alexandra feel different at a time when she wanted to be more like everybody else.

So, more and more through the years, Alexandra’s mom, Cindy, turned their kitchen into a laboratory. Together they experimented with new ingredients and spices. They created meals Cindy learned from her mother. The two of them worked together to make new dishes that would turn into family favorites. Spending so much time together in the kitchen started out of necessity, but became special times between mother and daughter, where Alexandra learned to love cooking.

New challenges emerged for Alexandra – bullying at school, time in psychiatric hospitals, limited job prospects – but spending time in the kitchen with her mother remained a comforting constant. As Alexandra reached her late 20s, Cindy kept searching for opportunities for her daughter to become more selfsufficient, in the kitchen and beyond. Then she found Arc Broward.

- Alexandra Miller

ARC Culinary Student of the Year

Arc Broward, in Sunrise, helps children and adults with developmental disabilities and other life challenges. In addition to educational programs for children, health care services and group homes, Arc offers an adult training program for culinary careers. Arc Culinary helps people facing unique barriers learn new skills to work at restaurants, food trucks, catering services and other culinary employment opportunities. After one tour, Alexandra was ready to enroll.

Arc’s instructors didn’t baby Alexandra. They treated her like an aspiring chef with a few health challenges. They taught her the importance of being on time, keeping a clean kitchen, knife skills, how to make sauces, safety practices and other necessities for employment in the culinary industry.

Alexandra excelled in her lessons and became a leader among her classmates. To reward Alexandra’s hard work, her instructors named her the 2022 Mary N. Porter Student Chef of the Year. The award is named for philanthropist Mary Porter, whose endowed charitable fund at the Community Foundation of Broward provided a key grant to help build the professional teaching kitchen at Arc that helped change Alexandra’s life.

Mary Porter trusted the Community Foundation to become her “eyes and ears” and carry on her legacy of community support long after

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Mary Porter’s enduring impact

Alexandra Miller never got to meet Mary Porter. But thanks to Mary’s visionary partnership with the Community Foundation, endowed support from the Mary N. Porter Legacy Fund is helping Alexandra and others build life-changing career skills.

Our expert team finds and vets innovative projects that align with Mary’s charitable goals, such as Arc Culinary’s teaching kitchen. We collaborate with a committee of Board members, former Board members and community representatives to recommend the most impactful projects to select. After our Board approves a grant, our team follows up to make sure recipients meet their commitments. And through careful investment, we shepherd and grow Mary’s endowed fund so it can fuel future grants and increase Mary’s impact, for generations to come.

A $250,000 Community Foundation grant from the Mary N. Porter Legacy Fund catapulted Arc Broward’s fundraising push to build the teaching kitchen that is helping Alexandra and others pursue culinary careers and become more self-sufficient.

“It really was a dream to bring this beautiful, incredible space to life,” said Kim Vassar, Arc Broward’s Chief Advancement Officer. “The reputation of the Community Foundation and having the support of the Community Foundation brought on other donors, brought on additional support. It was incredible.”

Alexandra’s ingredients for success continued

she was gone. Her estate gift to the Community Foundation in 2012 created several endowed charitable funds, including the Mary N. Porter Legacy Fund which established a dedicated source of support for construction, renovations and other major capital projects that make life better for Broward residents. Now on Mary’s behalf, the Community Foundation finds innovative projects – such as Arc Culinary’s new teaching kitchen – that make a lasting community impact and carry on Mary’s name.

Without the support of local philanthropy, Cindy said her daughter wouldn’t have had her life-changing experience at Arc Culinary.

“The dream in a parent’s heart, especially a parent of a child with a disability, is that they can find their passion and it can become their purpose,” Cindy said. “Through being in this program, a whole bunch of other doors have opened up for her.”

Today, Alexandra envisions using her culinary skills to work as a chef in a senior home. One day, she wants to launch a business providing food for people, like her, with special diets. The kitchen that was once her safe space has become her way forward.

“It’s changed my life. It’s helped me with everything that I know about cooking. It’s broadened my horizons,” Alexandra said about Arc Culinary. “With all the knowledge I have now, I feel that the sky’s the limit for me.”