Today we’d like to introduce you to Sunflower Bakery’s Executive Director, Jody Tick.
Hi Jody, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Sunflower Bakery started as a casual conversation among friends concerned about the lack of meaningful employment opportunities for people with learning differences. Sparked by a sweet tooth and a passion for ensuring that people of all abilities have access to meaningful employment, Sara Milner, Dina Leener, and Laurie Wexler envisioned the art of pastry and baking as a pathway to employment for people with learning differences.
From that vision, Sunflower Bakery became a reality in 2009 as a nonprofit starting as a modest eight-month pilot program in donated kitchen space. Sunflower continued to grow to meet the need for workforce development training and moved into a 1,200-square-foot facility in Gaithersburg, MD. In 2011, Sunflower celebrated its first class of five graduates in 2011. In 2013, Sunflower’s Summer Teen Exposure Program began providing teens with the opportunity to get a taste of what it’s like to train in pastry.
Café Sunflower opened in April 2015 as a collaboration of Sunflower Bakery, the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and Makom. The Café is located at 6101 Executive Blvd. in North Bethesda and is an outlet where customers can purchase delicious baked goods and students can learn front-of-house operations and customer service as part of Sunflower’s Hospitality employment training program.
As the need for workforce development training increased, Sunflower outgrew its Gaithersburg location and moved into a 5,668-square-foot facility state-of-the-art facility on Halpine Road in Rockville, Maryland in January 2020. This new employment training center includes a large production kitchen, a dedicated training kitchen, classroom space, offices, and a small retail bakeshop, Sunflower’s second retail outlet.
In 2021, Sunflower piloted and formalized its Hospitality program and in 2022, Sunflower added Job Services to support graduates in obtaining and sustaining competitive employment. As of 2023, Sunflower graduated 31 students, its largest class to date, and has impacted the lives of over 550 individuals since 2010.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The unmet need for workforce development training for people with disabilities in the DC metro area is enormous: 2.5% of DC area residents ages 18-64—over 70,000 people—have cognitive disabilities, and represent only 4% of the metro area’s workforce (Annual Disabilities Statistics Compendium, 2020). Sunflower was started and exists today to close this employment gap and, as part of our work, educate employers on the benefits of hiring people with disabilities
We do this by partnering with employers to not only place well-trained graduates in businesses as employees, but we consult with employers to ensure that the skills we teach align with industry standards to make sure our students are well prepared for positions as kitchen and customer service employees. Throughout our history, Sunflower has worked with over 60 employers across the DC metro region.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Sunflower Bakery specializes in providing workforce development training to young adults with learning differences and then working with our graduates to find competitive employment in the communities where they live.
We are proud of the impact we have had and, since 2010, Sunflower has touched the lives of over 550 individuals. Beyond the metrics, the Sunflower experience is transformational. Students that start in our program are not the same people when they leave. The growth in self-esteem and self-confidence helps to foster a strong work ethic and contributes to independence.
What sets Sunflower apart from the rest is our programmatic model. We work with our students for 26 weeks whereas most workforce developing training averages 12-14 weeks. We have a small student-to-teacher ratio allowing for more individualized attention to ensure our students learn and retain information and we incorporate our students in everything we make or sell providing real life, hands-on experience. And we help our graduates find employment by matching their strengths and interests with job opportunities that match those criteria.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
When working on challenging social issues and problems, risk is an inherent factor in that work. Using data to drive decisions and getting feedback from key constituents to inform work/new ideas/new training can minimize risk, but won’t eliminate it.
It’s still important to move forward and pilot new ideas to make change, even small, incremental change. Understanding that new ideas take time and require an iterative trial and error process supports a learning mindset and will, hopefully, result in positive results over time.
Contact Info:
- Website: sunflowerbakery.org
- Instagram: @sunflower.bakery
- Facebook: Thesunflowerbakery
Image Credits
Sunflower Bakery Staff and Hilary Eldrige
