DREAMS of a culinary career seemed all but dashed 10 years earlier for then University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) student Alrick Sucki.

With the Sucki patriarch unexpectedly diagnosed with a rare cancer, multiple myeloma, the family’s savings were exhausted in the ailing father’s treatment and care. The medical emergency threw a curve ball in the likelihood of the university student’s completion of his final year of the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, with financing now seemingly out of reach.

But life was just about to give Sucki a helping hand — he was awarded the inaugural Jamaica Observer Table Talk Food Awards scholarship in 2005, which, he reflected, “was a lifeline that resurrected a career from the dead”.

Addressing yesterday’s Jamaica Observer Monday Exchange in the newspaper’s executive boardroom to mark the 17th staging of the Table Talk Food Awards scheduled for Devon House on Thursday, May 28, Sucki — fighting back tears — told the room of Food Awards sponsors, past scholarship recipients, this year’s batch of scholarship hopefuls, as well as reporters and editors, that being awarded the scholarship positively impacted his life and shaped his professional career. “It’s been significant,” Sucki, currently employed as the food and beverage team lead at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel, said of the scholarship.

“The footing that was given to me has catapulted me to the heights of management years later, based on being granted the scholarship. It was a bridge literally over a river for me.” Opportunity immediately knocked when news of Sucki being the first scholarship recipient garnered cover story status in the Observer.

Local hotel magnate Kevin Hendrickson was instantly captivated by Sucki’s hard scrabble tale and the will to succeed, offering the college student a professional start as a relief food and beverage supervisor at The Courtleigh Hotel’s Alexander’s restaurant.

Tenacious, and not one to shy away from volunteering his time beyond structured hours, Sucki has been rewarded for his work ethic and promoted four times within his decade of employment. Looking back at the journey he’s taken from penniless student to now self-sufficient middle manager, Sucki remains ever grateful.

“The Observer literally put money back into my family’s pockets through the scholarship,” he shared.“It was a job opportunity for me to earn and from there also fund basic food expenses. The Observer gave me a start and enabled me to take charge and lead my family to a better position now where I can take care of my mother and help put my brother through school,” he added.

Tales of transformed lives and choruses of gratitude resonated beyond Suki as other scholarship recipients, assisted with bursaries and miscellaneous expenses through the Observer’s programme, revealed the benefits they have since realised.

For Junior Roberts, a scholarship awardee in 2011 who at the time was working three jobs — one full-time — while enrolled in school and was unable to keep up with the school’s curriculum on account of fatigue, the scholarship was a welcome relief.

“It was not only being given the scholarship but also participating in the Observer Foodie Seminar leading up the Food Awards that greatly assisted me and gave me focus,” he shared after the Monday Exchange.

“The guest chef that year, Trinidadian celebrity chef Roger Mooking, gave a presentation that was instructive and opened my eyes to the importance of the little details in what you do always mattering,” Roberts, now a food consultant and caterer-forhire, told the Observer.

“I also was able to network and meet established chefs who gave me guidance that has helped me along my journey.” It’s a quid pro quo path for Roberts who, having endured his own trials financing his university education, is giving a helping hand to his brother who is pursing engineering studies.

Twenty-six-year-old Samantha Martin-George, a 2013 scholarship recipient who today operates her own seven-month-old NKLA Deli in the New Kingston Shopping Centre, said the scholarship was a confidence booster.

“I didn’t think I was necessarily worthy [at the time],” she said, “but it made me realise that I was able to make a mark. “In my final year, I was this close to being kicked out, and I would have to start over the programme if I couldn’t find the money,” Martin-George divulged.

As one of seven children growing up in humble circumstances in Papine, her working-class contractor father would go months without employment and “we didn’t have a steady flow of income”, she noted.

“The scholarship came right in time as I would not have been able to finish school. I had student loans for the second and third years, but getting the scholarship in the final year allowed me to finish and allowed me to not pay back so much of the mega-interest, so I’m not so much in debt now.”

The scholarships — funded from sales of Food Awards tickets — have helped in excess of 50 needy final-year students at UTech’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management. Last year, $1.3 million in bursaries and miscellaneous donations was awarded to students Lasanna Allen, Nashana Murray, Zola Davis, Leanne Morrison, and Krystal Thomas.

This year’s event is being sponsored by Victoria Mutual Wealth Management, Sagicor, Supreme Ventures, Digicel, Best Dressed Chicken, Jamaica Yellow Pages, Main Event, Spanish Court Hotel, Johnnie Walker, Ocean Spray, Frigidaire, Carreras Ltd, Business Access TV, Island Rentals, and Wata