Bakery Cooks Up a Sweet Future
November 21, 2011
Tiffany Yanaway, 19, (r) and Katara Tyler, 17, are trainees at Sunflower Bakery, which helps people with learning disabilities find jobs in the baking industry.
Step inside the kitchen of Sunflower Bakery and you’ll notice the typical sights, sounds and smells of a professional kitchen in action. But there is one thing that sets this bakery apart from others in the area: its special training program.
Five days a week, two professional pastry chefs work one-on-one with young adults from the community who have developmental or other cognitive disabilities. Their goal is to teach them basic skills so they can become proficient enough to get jobs in the baking industry.
During the 12-month training program, students spend about six months receiving professional instruction at Sunflower followed by a six-month internship, either in-house or at a local bakery.
Sweet Dream
Sara Portman Milner and Laurie Wexler founded the non-profit enterprise in 2009.
Before launching Sunflower Bakery, Milner worked at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington developing their special needs program.
Wexler had almost two decades of experience in program delivery and fundraising for non-profit organizations.
"As a social worker, I met Laurie and she said to me one day, ‘What do you think about this idea of starting a bakery that would train people with disabilities to work in a bakery?’" Milner recalls, "and I said, ‘I’m all about that. I love baking, I love working with people with special needs to give them opportunities that they wouldn’t have otherwise, let’s try it.’”
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