It was nine years ago when Cranston resident Nastassia Pinto’s life veered off course. Thanks to the Rhode Island Community Food Bank’s Community Kitchen program, though, it’s back on track.

“It has brought back my self-esteem to know I can get up every day and work – and I mean work. It’s really hard work,” she said with a smile as she pulls up a stool at T’s Restaurant in Cranston on Monday. She’s on a break from her spot in the kitchen line, where she is gaining work experience as part of the program.

The Community Kitchen began in 1998 and this Friday will graduate its 38th class. The program accepts low-income or unemployed adults and trains them for 14 weeks for a career in the culinary field.

Pinto came to the Community Kitchen after years of tough breaks and dead ends.

“It was very hard for me to get back in the workforce and the longer I was out, the harder it was,” she said.

Formerly an employee with the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence, and later a housekeeper for an East Side family, Pinto was forced to leave her job when her son was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and she needed to tend to him full-time.

“It threw me off big time,” she said. “I think for any mother it would be hard.”

Things hadn’t been the same since, and a tough economy threatened to keep her out of work. When she caught wind of an opportunity to do something she has always loved, however, Pinto jumped at the chance.

“This one stuck out in my head. I love cooking and I’ve loved it my whole life,” she said. “The kitchen is super busy but it all becomes second nature to you.”

Pinto learned to cook from her father, who long dreamed of opening his own restaurant. Now, it’s her that has family and friends salivating.

“I know I’m a good cook because everybody wants me to cook for them. Anything you can think of, I can make,” she said.

As for her specialties, Pinto says it all comes down to who’s coming to dinner. For her mother, it’s clams zuppa, but her sister would say shrimp scampi.

“They all have their favorite,” she says.

The same is true for her. While Italian has always been a personal favorite for Pinto, she said she is keeping her options open when she enters the workforce this week.

“I’m pretty open to anything,” she said, adding that eventually would like to start her own catering business but for now she’d just prefer to stay away from a major chain restaurant. “Somewhere the kitchen isn’t so huge you’re going to get lost in it.”

So far, her experience at T’s has been a positive one. She likes the people there and said the kitchen’s manager sets an example of how to multitask and look out for your coworkers simultaneously.

“They help each other if the line gets really busy. They’re real people – that’s what I like,” she said.

That kind of teamwork is something Pinto is glad to be a part of again. She says she has always gotten along well with others, and the Community Kitchen is no exception. Straying off the subject of herself, Pinto lights up as she talks about her fellow students, like a man from Russia who she says has so much knowledge to share, or an African woman who teaches her tidbits about her native country. A lot of that interaction comes during the post-meal, when students meet to talk about what they accomplished that day or what challenges they were faced with.

“It’s a diverse group of people coming together,” she said. “We’re one big family now.”

Each day, the “family” has hungry kids to feed. The students prepare meals to be donated to Kids Cafe, a Food Bank after-school initiative that provides a nutritious meal to children at risk of hunger. Close to 500 children are fed every day at sites in Providence.

“I’m part of something that’s doing some good,” Pinto says.

The class of eight was rewarded for that good with some pampering at the Paul Mitchell School in Cranston Tuesday. The school offered complimentary haircuts and styling to the students at their Atwood Avenue salon.

As she prepares for tomorrow’s graduation ceremony, Pinto says it’s a bittersweet feeling. She is proud of herself and eager to return to work full-time, but said she will miss the program coordinators and participants as well. Still, she is confident that the next chapter in her life will be a positive one.

“I know I’m going to get a job,” she said. “I like putting something into the world, and I’m doing something that I love.”