Baking for Betterment

By Amy Mikel in Food on Oct 22, 2008 9:50PM

A new gourmet catering bakery opened earlier this week in Goose Island to great fanfare from the Mayor’s Office, as the new business is meant to help the homeless in Chicago – something the Mayor certainly finds helpful for his ten-year Plan to End Homelessness. The bakery, Sweet Miss Giving’s, is a both a business and social service organization, providing job training, employment, and support for formerly homeless persons with disabilities. Twenty paid interns are staffed as bakers, packers, and delivery assistants.

Half of Sweet Miss Giving’s is owned by the non-profit organization Chicago House, a housing agency for persons with HIV and AIDS, while the remaining percentage of the business is owned by private investors. Rev. Stan Sloan, the CEO of Chicago House, conceived the idea of the bakery and helped to raise $600,000 to get the project off the ground. Profits from the bakery will mostly be donated back to Chicago House.

“If you want people to live with dignity, you have to treat them with dignity. Our new factory has top-of-the-line equipment; and our recipes are the best in the city,” says founder Rev. Stan Sloan. “We have tried to create an environment where our interns get the training and experience they need, and also where they can be proud to come to work everyday.”

Similar establishments that operate to help the less fortunate are Misericordia Hearts and Flour Bakery and First Slice Café.