Together We Bake - The Basics
Vision
Together We Bake’s vision is to empower women facing barriers to progress in their career trajectories and toward self-sufficiency. TWB believes in a society where women are valued and have the support they need to be whole and break the cycle of trauma and abuse.
Mission
Together We Bake’s mission is to provide a comprehensive workforce training and personal development program to help underserved women gain self-confidence, transferable workforce skills, and invaluable hands-on experience which will allow them to find sustainable employment and move toward self-sufficiency.
Values
Together We Bake is guided by our values of Empowerment, Collaboration, Respect, Honesty, The Hustle and Quality.
Program
Together We Bake is an empowerment-based workforce training program for women facing barriers to employment. Our program is centered around a small baking business through which women actively learn and participate in food production, food safety education, and business administration. We also teach empowerment and life-skills classes to help women develop self-confidence, healthy coping strategies, and a strong support network as they move toward self-sufficiency. Each woman graduates job-ready, empowered, and with a nationally-recognized ServSafe certificate, resulting in preferential hiring and higher wages.
Together We Bake has three sessions per year (Winter, Spring, and Fall). Each session is 8 weeks long and runs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 9:30 – 2:30.
Check out some of our program statistics, in 2021:
- 84% program completion rate
- 100% passage rate for the ServSafe exam
- 6% recidivism rate (compared to the national rate of 70%)
- 65% employment rate
- 100% empowered women!
For more details about the program, please see: How it works.
The Backstory
Co-founders Stephanie Wright and Tricia Sabatini first became friends through their children at Douglas MacArthur Elementary School. Their friendship grew as they became running partners and co-coached Girls on the Run. In 2011, while training for the Marine Corp Marathon, Tricia and Stephanie shared their dreams of helping women in their community. Stephanie has a background in social work and Tricia was operating a small baking business out of her home, so they decided to combine their strengths and create an innovative program to help women in need of a second chance. Over many miles and hours of training, the concept of Together We Bake was born.
In 2014, Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, a supporter of Together We Bake, launched Fruitcycle, a social enterprise that made delicious, healthy, locally sourced snacks. The focus was on using produce that would otherwise go to waste while providing jobs for women who have been formerly incarcerated, homeless, or otherwise disadvantaged. Fruitcycle’s first hire was a TWB alumni. In 2016, Fruitcycle merged with TWB, resulting in a wonderful new product line and a great synergy.
