Sunflower Bakery relaunches name to reflect expanded job training

[Cristina Caicedo Smit]

Sunflower Bakery, a Montgomery County nonprofit that trains young adults with learning differences for jobs in food service, has relaunched under a new name to reflect how much its programs have grown.

The organization is now Sunflower Bakery, Kitchen and Cafe. It began in 2009 as a pastry-focused training program and now offers training in culinary arts and hospitality, as well as pastry arts.

“We are relaunching our brand to better reflect how we’ve grown and evolved,” said Laurie Wexler, the organization’s co-founder and executive director.

Wexler, a longtime past executive director, said the old name didn’t reflect the organization’s whole story. “The language of Sunflower Bakery did not really fully define for customers and for potential students what we offered,” she said.

A different kind of training

Students are young adults who have gone through special education and are leaving school. Jodie Tick, executive director of the non-profit said that transition is often called a “cliff” because the structure and support they had in school disappear, leaving an underfunded, uncoordinated system with few job opportunities.

“We exist today for the same reason we were begun: to close that employment gap for young adults,” she said.

Many workforce programs serve other groups, such as returning citizens or refugees. “What sets us apart is we work with young adults with learning disabilities, and so we provide a different type of environment and platform for them to succeed,” Tick said.

Students complete a 26-week program, compared with 12 to 16 weeks at many workforce programs. “We want to make sure that our students are not only absorbing the information, but retaining it as well,” she said. In the pastry program, three students work with two instructors.

Wexler said baking suits many students because it is concrete. “It’s specific. If you follow the recipe, you get what you’re seeking,” she said. “It’s not subjective.”

Paul Block, is a recent graduate from the program and now works at the bakery, he enjoys working and helping assisting customers. “I personally believe that if I didn’t get the training here, I’ll probably be looking for a job today,” Block said.

Growth

The program started as a small pilot at a local synagogue, then spent about 10 years in a roughly 1,200-square-foot production bakery in Gaithersburg before moving to a facility that is about 6,000 square feet. The culinary program was piloted at Beth Sholom and then moved into a kosher kitchen two doors from the current location.

“We were able to start training immediately, and we are now in our second full year of training in culinary, which we’re very proud of,” Wexler said.

How to help

“Every purchase goes back to support our students,” Tick said. The organization also accepts donations, partners with employers who hire graduates, and welcomes individual and corporate volunteers.

“We develop relationships with our employers. They know us. They know what we do. And they look to us for potential employees,” she said. “It’s a win-win.”

“I welcome the community to come and join us,” she added.



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