<< Back

Andrea Monahan picked up a devil's food ...
Baking, culinary arts taught at Berkeley Adult School allow students to earn a living wage and get a fresh start
- Dorothy Vriend, CORRESPONDENT
Posted on Fri, Aug. 18, 2006

Andrea Monahan picked up a devil's food cake shiny with chocolate icing, and patted some cocoa along the sides for decoration. This was the end of a long process that included cutting the cake into layers, putting whipped cream and frosting between each, letting it sit overnight, and frosting it.

She graduated from the Bread Project at Berkeley Adult School on the first Thursday in August but started her new job at a Safeway in Alameda the day before, getting time off to attend the celebration. The baking, culinary arts and job-readiness program graduated 21 students this summer, and starts a new nine-week program Aug. 30.

For Monahan, 40, the Bread Project was a life-changing event, replacing a 20-year drug habit with a full-time job.

She went straight from a rehabilitation program into the Bread Project, and straight from there into her new job. That is how the program is supposed to work.

Its founders were looking for something that could help low-income people get established quickly. Inspired by a resident of a low-income housing project who was always baking bread for neighbors but worried she had no marketable skills, founder Susan Phillips saw baking as a way to help scores of low-income people get jobs with benefits.

Research told her there were jobs. Along with colleague Lucie Buchbinder, she launched the Bread Project, opening in San Francisco in 2001 and in Berkeley in 2003. The Bread Project also ran a session in Oakland in 2004, and plans to run a program there again this fall.

"We try to help people who would otherwise have trouble getting a job," said Phillips, now community relations officer for the nonprofit organization. "We recruit from agencies: ex-prisoners, people in recovery, people who have just dropped out of the job market through no fault of their own, people who don't speak English well. They have families; they need jobs, too."

The Bread Project is not your ordinary adult class. It runs full time for nine weeks, requiring students to attend from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. five days a week. It is free to those who are accepted into the program -- acceptance is determined by interview. To get into the program, students must have a keen interest, be able to lift 50 pounds, be clean and sober, and speak English well enough to read a recipe, Phillips said.

The Adult School provides the kitchen and the culinary instructors; the Bread Project raises funds for all other costs, including administrators' salaries, baking ingredients and student supplies, said Executive Director Lily Divito. Fund-raising includes an annual high tea, to be held from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 22 at Scott's Seafood Restaurant in Oakland. The organization also has received some government grants, Phillips said.

Since its inception, the Bread Project has graduated more than 400 low-income students. It claims an 88 percent graduation rate and a 74 percent employment rate. Of those, 84 percent are still employed after one year.

Part of its success can be credited to the job-readiness training and job-placement assistance that are an integral part of the program. Administrators also follow up on their students, and offer ongoing support for a year after graduation.

On the same Thursday that Monahan and her classmates were frosting and decorating devil's food cakes, Rhonda Wilson, one of last year's graduates, was sitting in Divito's office, getting ready to talk to students about her year of work since graduating in June 2005. Wilson, 45, got hired by Pak 'n Save on Hegenberger Road in Oakland less than two weeks after completing classes, then later transferred to Safeway in Alameda Town Center in December. There she was promoted to head sales clerk, and now makes $13 per hour plus benefits.

"This is my first full-time job since 1988," Wilson said. She had worked on and off as a nurse's aid and a security guard, then slipped into a life of drugs and alcohol that landed her in jail for petty theft. In 2001, her children were taken by Child Protective Services.

It was in Santa Rita jail that she heard a presentation about the Bread Project, and hung onto the pamphlet until she was ready to go through rehab and make a change. Now she is proud of her new stability. It has earned her the right to get her children back -- they were returned to her custody in August 2005, about two months after she was hired.

"It's overwhelming joy," Wilson said. "I've done so much destruction and hurtful things to myself and my loved ones. For me to make this transition, it is awesome."

In the kitchen of the adult school, instructor Neucimar (Nel) Dias da Silva was showing the class how to create the contrast on the glossy frosted cakes with the cocoa.

"Tap, tap, tap," he said demonstrating by tapping on the bottom of the cake tray so the excess cocoa came down, leaving a fine matte dusting on the cake to contrast with the glossy frosting.

The program begins with the basics, teaching students to use scales to measure ingredients and other equipment required for a commercial-size baking project.

Students begin by baking cookies, then move on to quick breads, cakes, breads, fine pastries, tarts and pies. The goal is to prepare them for an entry-level job in baking, Dias da Silva said.

While many students go that route, some have the goal of running their own business. Student Stacy Wells, 33, does some cake decorating already but would like to open a one-stop party shop, where clients can buy cakes, party favors, invitations and related items.

Diane Stelly, 59, hopes in the short term to get a job with a commercial baking production company. Ultimately, she would like to develop her own product line so she can wholesale to grocery stores and bakeries.

She does some freelance cooking and baking for private clients already but says her training with the Bread Project was invaluable; from learning how to make the varied breads, pastries, cakes and pies, to processes such as weighing ingredients and kneading dough.

"To learn different ways of kneading -- it's very different than stirring the pot. There really is a craftsmanship to it," Stelly said.

© 2006 ContraCostaTimes.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.contracostatimes.com