Recently back home after joining World Central Kitchen’s outreach in war-torn Ukraine, Chef José Andrés on June 9 addressed the class of 2022 at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in Bethesda, Maryland including his daughter Lucia, sharing lessons he has learned in the kitchens of his restaurants and on the front lines where the humanitarian organization he founded has provided food relief after natural and manmade disasters.
Instead of addressing relief workers, local chefs and volunteers huddled around makeshift kitchens or food distribution lines in areas hit by hurricanes, earthquakes or other crises, the world famous Spanish chef delivered the commencement address for 95 young women who just received their diplomas from the all-girls Catholic school sponsored by the Society of the Sacred Heart.
“Every one of you girls has something within you that can help the person next to you or your family or your community,” he said. “You can feed the world, not just with food like me, but with what you know and with what you are good with. Like I fed the hungry, look within your heart to find your light, find what you are good at, and be ready to feed the hopes of people. We need you to do that.”
On that breezy morning, the graduating seniors wearing long white formal dresses or pantsuits and holding bouquets of red roses sat in the shade of a majestic willow oak tree in front of the school’s Hamilton House.
With his lectern facing the family members and guests assembled on the lawn below, Andrés often turned to his left and his right to offer a personal message to the graduates seated behind him.
“Class of 2022, you should be so proud of what you have achieved. This would be true in any year, but after the last two years of this pandemic that has separated you from each other and from your teachers, what you have done is a super big deal,” he said, adding, “You have overcome adversity in your own way. These skills you have learned are also part of your education.”
Adapting to the unexpected, he said, is something he has learned in the kitchen.
“You know, I am a cook. I like to think of it as changing the recipe. If you don’t have the ingredients you need or if you don’t have the right pots or pans, what you do, people, is easy. You don’t follow the recipe. You adapt. You change the recipe.”
That, he said, has been the approach of World Central Kitchen, as it has set up operations in areas where disasters have left food supplies disrupted, kitchens destroyed and communication lines down.
“That’s when you go and change the recipe, to fix the broken parts of our world,” Andrés said.
Andrés, often credited with bringing the small plates dining concept to America, operates more than 30 restaurants. In 2010, he founded World Central Kitchen, which began by supplying food relief to Haiti after a devastating earthquake there. His book, “We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time,” told the story of that humanitarian organization’s outreach to that island after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
“We Feed People,” the new National Geographic documentary film directed by Ron Howard and now streaming on Disney+ tells the story of Andrés and his work with World Central Kitchen, which is now providing nearly one million meals per day in Ukraine, and recently provided emergency food relief to community members in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas after the mass shootings there.
Catherine Ronan Karrels, Stone Ridge’s Head of School, noted that Jose Andrés and his wife Patricia have been an important part of that community for the past nine years, with their three daughters Carlota (class of 2017), Ines (class of 2019) and Lucia (class of 2022) attending and graduating from the school. She said the chef exemplifies the values of a Sacred Heart education, especially the goal of social awareness that impels action.
Then she turned over the introduction to Lucia Andrés, who said that while some know her father as a Spanish chef or the founder of World Central Kitchen, “or even as the Stone Ridge father who took field day my freshman year way too seriously, I know him as my dad, who never let me or my sisters order off the kids’ menu. He’s the guy who got kicked out of my sister’s soccer game for yelling at the ref in Spanish after he gave a bad call.”
Remembering his recent departure for Ukraine, she said, “In February as he prepared to leave yet again, I witnessed him standing at the entrance of our house, carrying his World Central Kitchen backpack, along with solar powered chargers and walkie-talkies. I had a feeling this time, he would be gone more than the norm.”
Lucia Andrés described her father as “a man of passion and determination that just can’t sit back while there are people suffering and in need of food and support.”
She added, “While I was younger, I hated seeing my father leave, and I couldn’t really understand why he did. But as I grew older, I began to realize the significance of his work. In my eyes, he’s a real-life superhero. He continues to show up for those in need, and somehow for a brief amount of time when the world isn’t calling for his help, he manages to come home, and we are grateful.”
As she introduced Andrés as the commencement speaker, his youngest daughter said she hadn’t had the opportunity to express her gratitude and admiration for him, so on that day, “I stand in front of you, my father, my classmates and my school, to say ‘I love you so much.’”
The chef and humanitarian embraced his daughter and wiped tears from his eyes before he began his speech. Moments later, he joked, “I love that I am talking and actually my daughter is listening to anything I have to say. This is big!”
On a serious note, Andrés said, “For someone like me, who didn’t really finish any traditional school, today really feels like I am graduating. I guess I graduated three times with my three daughters.”
He told the graduates that he joined the Spanish navy when he was about their age, but after being assigned to cook for an admiral at his house, he drew up the courage to knock on the officer’s door and request that he be allowed to be a cook on a ship sailing the ocean, and that led to him doing just that and seeing the world, including America for the first time.
“Don’t be afraid of rejection. Don’t be afraid of asking for what you want or what you need,” he said.
Andrés also emphasized that “big results can come from very small things… Be the one who will make the difference. Every time you take action to solve a problem, as small as it may seem, you are starting to change the world.”
The commencement speaker told the students, “Like many of you, I had a good teacher. When Jesus saw hungry people following him, he didn’t think about what he could do, he acted. He multiplied loaves of bread and a few fish. He fed bodies and souls with hope, one plate of food at a time, he showed us the way.”
Concluding his address, Andrés encouraged the graduates to “keep learning, and at the same time, keep sharing your talents with all the people around you. The world is already a better place, because you are in it.”
Two months before his address, Stone Ridge held a World Central Kitchen Giving Day at the school that raised $6,146 for the agency’s relief efforts in Ukraine.
In another talk at the commencement, Amelia Lawlor, the salutatorian for Stone Ridge’s class of 2022, said she and her classmates had not only been given tools to succeed in life, but also had been taught “to be compassionate, considerate, and care for the community and the world around us.”
The class’s valedictorian, Holland Keegan, noted that she had attended Stone Ridge since prekindergarten. “Whether you have been here for 14 years or six or two years, I can say with confidence that there is no better group of people to grow up alongside. I am eternally grateful to all of you for being the friends, teammates and sisters of my life.”
Earlier in her remarks as the Head of School, Catherine Ronan Karrels praised Stone Ridge’s class of 2022, noting that in addition to their academic accomplishments, they had been student leaders as drama and musical productions and concerts were first performed at the school’s new Mater Center, and a record 17 members of that class will be competing in college athletics.
She also commended the students for their community service and for guiding and setting an example for younger peers after the pandemic disrupted school life, and she praised them for speaking out for social and racial justice and on issues like climate change, immigration, gun violence and violence against women.
“We are proud of what you have achieved in your years here, but more importantly, we are proud of who you are,” she said.
She noted that St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, the foundress of the Society of the Sacred Heart, “didn’t just set out to create great schools. She set out to bring the heart of Christ into our world. As children of Sacred Heart, we are called to live not only for ourselves, but to make this world a better place.”
After the graduation, two members of Stone Ridge’s class of 2022 said in email interviews that they would take to heart the message that José Andrés had offered to the graduates there.
Lulu Schropp summarized a key point of his message as, “If you will not feed the world, who will?”
She said that ties into the school’s social action theme of “‘How is my well-being bound up in yours,’ because it also begs the question of, ‘How will you take care of others, and if you won’t, who will?’”
Through Stone Ridge’s Social Action program, Schropp served at the Father McKenna Center in Washington, which provides outreach to homeless men and a food pantry for seniors, families and individuals in need in that neighborhood. She was a student leader in the school’s campus ministry, played varsity soccer there, and at the graduation ceremony, she received the Cardinal’s Award for reflecting Catholic values at the school and in her personal life. She will be attending the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg.
Fellow Stone Ridge graduating senior Ava Brooks received a Commitment Award at the graduation ceremony for reflecting the goal for Sacred Heart school students of having a personal and active faith in God. During the school’s Social Action Wednesdays, she served at Bikes for the World in Rockville.
Brooks, who will be attending Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said that after the graduation ceremony, her family discussed José Andrés’s message of “changing the recipe.”
“I think that’s the best kind of advice to give anyone. Adaptation is an enormous part of life, especially as graduating seniors head off to college,” Brooks said. She added that she also appreciated “his story about sailing the world and seizing opportunities.”
Reflecting on her graduating class at Stone Ridge, Brooks said, “I am grateful to have graduated with such an amazing group of young women, and I am so proud of each of them. I cannot wait to see what each of them accomplishes later in life.”
