Red and yellow peppers glisten as they fall into bite-sized pieces under Marilyn Harvell's knife in a garage-sized kitchen Uptown. Fish is frying on the stove.

Most never know who prepares our food, but Springboard Kitchens knows all about Ms. Harvell's past. The staff voted her into its training program in spite of it.

"I'm a former miscreant," she says, to a disbelieving look. "I am. I was a drug user, a prostitute. I'm here because I love to cook, and I knew there had to be a better way to do things."

Many people who will eat her salad for lunch are in her old shoes. They are homeless or struggling with addictions and other disorders. They are clients of Bethlehem Haven and the Peer Support & Advocacy Network, two contract agencies of Springboard Kitchens.

Springboard is a model of the Seattle-based FareStart and has joined Kitchens With Mission, a network FareStart launched six years ago.

Social service agencies refer trainees, providing services to get them ready. Trainees have to be voted in and pass tuberculosis and drug tests. They work Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and are expected to meet the standards to which any employer would hold its staff.

David Carleton, executive director of Kitchens With Mission, said employers "know more about someone graduating from this program than a private employer who gets a resume from a guy who looks great on paper but may be a raging alcoholic.

"We have students who have blown my mind," he said. "They live in shelters and have 100 percent attendance."

If they regress, they're out, said Jennifer Flanagan, business development officer for Lutheran Service Society. Trainees can return but have to start over.

The Lutheran Service Society adopted Springboard to create revenue for its mission and fulfill its mission at the same time.

Springboard launched at Miryam's, a women's shelter on Fifth Avenue, in mid-February with 240 meals a day. In one month, it was delivering 320 meals a day and got three catering jobs. Revenue jumped from $5,000 to $12,000. Ms. Flanagan said she expects two new contracts to bring in $26,000 by the end of July.

Starting Monday, Springboard will take over and manage the much larger kitchen at Life's Work two blocks away on Forbes Avenue. Life's Work's clients are disabled, at risk of homelessness, court-ordered youth and others with barriers to employment.

The cafeteria serves about 60 paying customers among clients, staff, tenants and agencies that rent space in the building, said Chris O'Shell, spokesman for Life's Work.

Springboard Kitchens will be able to grow with the move, said Ms. Flanagan. "The more space we have, the more contracts we can take and the more people we can train."

Mr. Carleton said Kitchens With Mission aims its network's graduates toward large food-service operations "because restaurants aren't the best places for people who have had addiction problems, and benefits can be shoddy and work hours difficult." The preferred employers are education systems, hospitals and cruise ships. Norwegian Cruise Lines hires about 10 network graduates a year, he said.

Chef Richard Book leads the 16-week training sessions at Springboard. Upon completion, his students will be certified to work in a commercial kitchen.

"We're not training chefs," he said, "but this will give them a very good start, above entry level." In previous jobs, he said, "I employed a lot of people with the same certification."

Behavioral training runs alongside kitchen training because the trainees need reinforcement "on how to get and keep a job, how to present, anger management," said Ms. Flanagan. "We are looking at a retention standard of 12 months" once a person is placed in a job.

As one of three people in Springboard's still-nascent program, Ms. Harvell, 44, will be part of the kitchen staff at Life's Work. She appears a lifetime away from her miscreant days; few people look so happy chopping vegetables.

"I used to watch my mother cook, and I always wanted to go to school for culinary training," she said.

She lived alternately with her mother on the North Side and brother in Hazelwood, calling herself homeless "because I wasn't where I wanted to be. My family didn't cast me aside, but you can't keep living off people.

"Now I go home to my own home" in Wilkinsburg. "And I have my paper on the counter and I practice making the right knife cuts on vegetables," she said. "Thank you, Springboard!"