'A hand up': SSA grad partners with celebrity chef to continue vet-run food truck program

The death of a friend who struggled to find the resources to start a culinary business inspired Lt. Cmdr. Jordan J. Foley to create a food truck program.

His late friend was a classmate at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

“My friend didn’t have the support network to start a business,” said Foley, a 2007 graduate of Shady Side Academy. “There are lots of talented chefs, but the industry is brutal so I decided to focus on a food truck training model as a microcosm of the culinary industry.”

In 2020, Foley founded Let’s Chow, a nonprofit designed to provide services for military veterans through cooking therapy, cookware donations, culinary education and business advice for anyone from home chefs to aspiring food truck or restaurant owners.

Let’s Chow helps military veterans navigate the culinary world. The first truck was purchased in April 2021. Let’s Chow has donated 50,000 meals and 15,000 hours of hands-on training for veterans and military spouses.

Foley has helped to launch five veteran-run food trucks in Philadelphia, San Diego, Georgia and Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

More will be rolling along in the future.

To make sure the food truck program continues, Foley merged the business with the Robert Irvine Foundation. The foundation is led by celebrity chef and entrepreneur Robert Irvine, who hosted a variety of Food Network programs, including “Restaurant Impossible,” a show where Irvine gave struggling restaurateurs a second chance to turn their lives and businesses around.

Foley met Irvine through one of Foley’s Naval Academy mentors who has been a board member of the foundation.

Foley’s Let’s Chow initiative is “in a word, it’s brilliant,” Irvine said in an email.

“My entire life and career has been built around the power of food to bring people together, strengthen relationships and forge new ones,” Irvine said. “Food, whether we are conscious of it or not, exists in service of this higher purpose. The Let’s Chow initiative puts food and people to work explicitly for this higher purpose, all while benefiting our nation’s heroes.”

A portion of the proceeds from all of Irvine’s endeavors benefit the Robert Irvine Foundation. Created in 2014, the foundation gives back to military and first responder communities.

Having Let’s Chow become Robert Irvine Foundation’s official Food Truck Program was an easy decision.

“We talk a lot about the power of food to bring people together, but an honest day’s work has great power, too,” Irvine said. “It is integral to human dignity and lending purpose and meaning to our lives. So I am thrilled with everything about our newest program, Let’s Chow — from the communities the food trucks will serve, the veteran community it benefits, and the labor that it creates. It is a triumph in every sense. “

It is the perfect match, Foley said.

“Robert believed in the work and mission of Let’s Chow,” Foley said. “I am just one person. I don’t want anything to happen to Let’s Chow. I want this to continue, and this is a way for it to continue.”

Foley still will be involved with Let’s Chow. He currently serves as the operational law branch head in the Office of the Judge Advocate General’s International and Operational Law Division at the Pentagon. He was selected to be a defense fellow in the Senate.

Foley’s military career has taken him all over the world, including time spent in the Chinese Navy on a training exchange. He had studied Chinese in his first year of high school because he thought it was interesting. Foley majored in Mandarin — a newer major — at the Naval Academy.

After graduating, Foley was selected to go to graduate school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a dual master’s degree in space system and technology policy. He then trained at the Navy’s Nuclear Power School to become a submarine officer and served a tour and deployment on the USS Annapolis. The Navy then sent Foley to law school at Georgetown to become a JAG, a judge advocate general.

Foley graduated with distinction and first overall for Military Order of Merit in 2012 from the Naval Academy, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Chinese and served as brigade commander.

He attended Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics as part of a research fellowship.

In 2018, Foley was selected for the Law Education Program and graduated from Georgetown University Law Center in 2021 as a Global Law Scholar with a focus on Chinese comparative law.

A lot of Foley’s foundation began in high school, from studying Chinese to being a three-sport athlete, he said. The language helped him see the world through his military assignments, and the baseball, basketball and football teams helped him develop a level of understanding and working together, which transferred into his military training.

“Sports help you understand people,” Foley said.

Foley understands what veterans need, and he is giving them the opportunity to own and operate food trucks, bridging the gap between a veteran leaving the service and entering the culinary industry.

“The goal is once the veteran or military spouse has learned enough about the culinary industry, they are free to pursue their own business venture — perhaps opening a restaurant of their own,” Foley said.

Through the profits of these trucks, Let’s Chow pursues other initiatives supporting veterans and military families through cooking therapy, cookware donations, culinary education and online recipes. Foley said the transition to civilian life is not easy, and it can be daunting when considering a complete career change.

“Whether a veteran has no food service experience or is a retired culinary specialist, our training program gets you to where you need to go,” said Foley, who lives in Maryland with his wife and two daughters. “We need to change the culture because, if we help them, this will change the fabric of America. A lot of people can relate to my friend’s story of wanting to do something but not having the resources. These people who served their country deserve a chance at success. I don’t want another call like this that a friend has died. What I am doing is a small sliver. I want to give veterans a hand up and not a handout because that is how you change things.”