Speaker 1: Welcome to the Real People, Real Stories podcast, brought to you by the Paciello Group, bringing you the interesting and diverse stories of individuals working to make the world a more inclusive place. Mark Miller: Hey, welcome to the Real People, Real Stories podcast brought to you by the Paciello Group and its affiliate, Interactive Accessibility. I am your host, Mark Miller, thanking you for helping us keep it accessible. Do us a favor. If you're enjoying the IAP, share it, tell someone about it, hey, even link to it from your accessible website. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We have a whole crew with us today, and I want to first introduce Shirley to everyone. She is from the South Fork Bakery. Shirley, can you tell us a little bit about this bakery and what it does, and more importantly, who works there? Shirley: Okay. South Fork Bakery started five years ago and I started it. I am a speech and language pathologists, and I wanted to create opportunities for work for special needs adults. As a speech therapist, I worked with families and adults who graduated at 21 years of age from high school, and they didn't have any opportunities for work really out here, any meaningful work, I felt. So, I started a wholesale bakery in 2016. For three years, we were a regular profit business, and then we applied for a nonprofit status in our third year and got it at the end of that year in 2018. For the past two years, we've had a board of directors and we have been a nonprofit. We have about 16 special needs adults who work on our staff. We're the only business on the east end of Long Island that specifically hires people with special needs. That's in a nutshell. Mark Miller: That's absolutely fantastic. I have to say, first of all, I can really appreciate just your original profession as a speech therapist because I have an aunt who's a speech therapist, so I grew up with a speech therapist. When we were doing something wrong and she wanted to pay attention to us, she would say, "Look at my mouth." But it was very interesting, as a young man growing up with a speech therapist and being exposed to a lot of the things that you're talking about. That's probably a lot where my passion for this industry really came in. I'm reasonable at sign language and that was definitely an interest that was sparked out of speech therapy. What's interesting to me is that you have this career and you're working with people with special needs, and then you decide, I'm assuming, a retirement capacity, like I'm no longer going to do this speech therapy thing. I'm going to open up a bakery. Shirley: I haven't given up my speech therapy practice. Mark Miller: Okay, you're still doing that. But why a bakery, and where does this idea really evolve from in this specific way it formed for you? Shirley: Well, I've had a kitchenette in my private practice office for years, and I've used cooking and baking therapeutically. It's great for following directions, it's great for cooperating, and it's great for communication, talking back and forth and working through. Mark Miller: It was part of your curriculum for a long time, really. Shirley: Yes, it has been. It's just something that's very motivating. It's always been something that's been fun to do both for me and my clients, and it has a lot of value for a lot of different reasons, as I just mentioned. So, when I thought about the clients that I was working with, who were graduating and didn't have opportunities for work, I thought, well, they all love to bake with me. Maybe a bakery would be a good thing. I did do some background. I went to see some other companies that are bakeries that hire special needs adults that maybe are more integrated than we are that hire both special needs and more typical adults. I decided to go with this model, but I knew there were other businesses out there. Either colleagues like myself or parents were starting companies that were employing adults with disabilities, giving them something meaningful, purposeful to do. I just felt a great need to take my expertise and move it into that employment sector. Mark Miller: I have to say, I actually used to have a radio talk show for many years, and we talked to local businesses, small business, and we talked a lot about starting businesses. I think you can add to your skill set a really smart business woman, because doing that due diligence ahead of time probably led to your success. It's really good to recognize that there's an existing template and not reinvent the wheel and not go through the same learning pains as you would otherwise and say, "Geez, what did these people do? What's working for them?" So, I think that's very smart. Mark Miller: Talk to me about the first days. I can imagine this wonderful concept, and you're just pumped and you've done this due diligence and this research, and you've got this great idea, everything's motivated. But then you have the reality in the first few weeks, the first few months, the first few years of running a business and managing a group of people. What was that like? Were there particular challenges or things that occurred that really surprised you in those early days? Shirley: I've always loved to bake, but commercial baking is quite another story. It was a big learning curve, the first time walking into Restaurant Depot and coming out with this huge cart. My little Toyota Prius, the whole back of it was full of butter and flour. That whole element of moving and trucking things around that are 50 pounds was like, wow, this is not just thinking things out. There's a lot of manual labor. I think for me, that was a big thing. The easiest part was really the employees. I always worked with that population. I'm comfortable with them. I felt like I could set things up for success for them and felt confident doing that. It's the whole other parts of the business, the ordering, the inventory. I did hire a baker, so I had somebody there for quality control and to help with the production end of it the first year. She's been with us all five years. Mark Miller: Wonderful. That makes sense because that's where your strength was in the management of those employees. Speaking of employees, we have two other people I want to introduce on the podcast, Sarah and Scott. I'm assuming that you work with or work for Shirley in the bakery. Let's start with Sarah. Sarah, can you talk to us a little bit about what you do in the bakery and how this job is for you? Sarah: Back to what Shirley was saying about the first couple of weeks of the bakery, I started with the bakery five years ago. I remember us being at the hay ground kitchen. I drive and I have a car, so Shirley was like, "Can you go get some butter from King Kullen and come back? We ran out of stock." I was like, "Sure." Mark Miller: So the reason she was successful is because you were there in the wings [crosstalk 00:07:50]. Sarah: Yeah, had to drive the car over there and [crosstalk 00:07:52]. Mark Miller: I got it. What do you do for the bakery? Sarah: I do labels. I do about 900, 2,000 labels each week, which means I put labels on the bags and then I do the [inaudible 00:08:11] deliveries. I deliver to about 13 stores. Also, marketing. I market them, and I'm on their marketing committee. I also do the Southampton Farmers Market, which runs on Sundays. It started on Memorial Day weekend and it actually ran through Thanksgiving this year. It usually ends Columbus Day. I actually split the day with Scott. Scott does early shifts and I do the 12 to 3:30 shift. Then, he comes back at three o'clock. We both take down everything. I do phone calls on Monday. On Mondays, I call my clients and say, "Hey, it's Sarah from South Fork Bakery. Would you like to order something for this week?" They say, "Sure, I'll order blondies." I say, "Oh, we have a new product like macaroons. Would you like to try those for the week?" Mark Miller: Wow. That's a ton of responsibility. Marissa: I know. It sounds like you run the bakery. Shirley, what're you doing? Sarah: I have another job too. This is not my only job. Shirley: Why'd you stay with me five years? Mark Miller: Yeah, well, you can tell she's got the lay of the land. You said you have another job too, Sarah? Sarah: Also, I got us on News 12 Long Island. I don't know if you guys saw that. We were on News 12 with Doug Geed, East End Show, and I was able to get them on. Mark Miller: Oh, that's wonderful. That's a true marketer right there that's able to- Marissa: Yeah, I could learn from you. Mark Miller: That's what Marissa, my producer, does. She's marketing. Sarah: Really? Mark Miller: Yep. Maybe you guys should share some trade secrets. Sarah: I've done some patch articles too, [inaudible 00:09:51] articles. Also, this is not my only job. I have a second job. I work for the Southampton Chamber of Commerce, and I've been doing that [inaudible 00:10:00]. I got an intern job there. Actually, our first commute was confirmation in eighth grade, back in the day. Four or five years later, they said, "Let me hire you." I do that 10 hours a week and I do this 10 hours a week. Mark Miller: Wonderful. Marissa: That's great. Sarah: I really love the bakery stuff. Mark Miller: Yeah. That's good. Scott, can you tell us a little bit about what you do for the bakery? It sounds like you do some similar things to Sarah. Scott: Yeah. I'm actually more hands-on at the bakery, but my responsibilities include picking up one of the employees, being there on time. Also, I bring up the set of things that need to be brought up. I also bake and mix the dough three days a week. I do delivering of our baked goods to local stores on our account. Also, like Sarah said, I sell the baked goods at the Farmers Market in Southampton, the local Farmers Market. I do that once a week and I do it all over again and I enjoy doing it. Mark Miller: Good. Marissa: That's wonderful. Mark Miller: Scott, you've just got so many responsibilities, and I'll probably ask you the same thing here in a minute too, Sarah, but what's your favorite thing? When you think about the week that you have ahead of you, Scott, what's the one thing you look the most forward to doing? Scott: I think after working the week from Monday to Wednesday, going to the Farmers Market on Sunday. Mark Miller: I thought you were going to say that. Scott: Feeling a sense of relief that I finished the day and then doing it all over again. Mark Miller: Do you meet a lot of new people at the Farmers Market? Is that social aspect a lot of fun for you? Scott: Yeah. I meet a lot of the same people over again. The regulars, they like that we're a local bakery, and they couldn't be nicer. Mark Miller: That's great. It's almost like you've developed friends through selling the cookies or the baked goods. That's wonderful. How about you, Sarah? Out of all the responsibilities, running the whole company, that you do, is there something that you look forward to the most? Sarah: Well, I love getting us into News 12 and things like that. I love doing that. Not necessarily part of the job, but I love doing that. The Farmers Market is great because actually, the Southampton Chamber of Commerce where I work, they run the Farmers Market. I love seeing the people at the Farmers Market. The vendors are really great. I know a lot of the vendors. I tell them I work for the chamber. Actually, I work for the chamber on Saturdays. The Farmers Market is on Sundays. I love seeing the different vendors having the food, being in Agawam Park because it's by the ocean. There's a huge park by the ocean. Just seeing new clients and customers. Mark Miller: It sounds like you're a very valuable employee too, because you are thinking outside of just your basic responsibilities and you're thinking about different ways in which you can help the company and improve and get them into further places. To me, and I think that Marissa would agree, that's what we look for in employees, is people who're really thinking overall about the company. Is it fair to say that both of you guys really love this company, you're very passionate about it, and you want to see it succeed? Sarah: Yeah. Marissa: I have to ask, what type of products do you sell? What are your favorites? Mark Miller: Oh, that's a good question. Marissa getting down to the nitty gritty. Marissa: Yeah, hello. I'm thinking you heard about the blondies, maybe some hearts, brownies, cookies. What are you guys selling? Mark Miller: You haven't had dinner yet, have you, Marissa? Marissa: It's 4:30, Mark. Shirley: Go ahead, Scott. You mix up some of them. Tell them what you make. Scott: On Monday, I mix the chocolate chip cookies. I usually start out with baking the chocolate chunky brownies because once we bake them, they're baked, and the chocolate chip cookies get rolled on a different day. I get to make the chocolate chunky brownies, and I also will make the chocolate chip cookie dough, which will be refrigerated overnight and rolled the next day when I usually make the coconut macaroons and almond macaroons. Marissa: Those sound great. Mark Miller: I have to say that I love chocolate chip cookies. I don't know if that makes me a simple person when it comes to baked goods. Marissa: You are a simple person. Mark Miller: Yeah, you can do the butter and layers and all that stuff. Give me a good chocolate chip cookie. Are your chocolate chip cookies really good, Scott? Scott: To be honest, I've never had one before. Mark Miller: What? Shirley: You haven't ate the chocolate chip? Marissa: How? Mark Miller: Why? This is what the podcast is now about, why Scott has never eaten a chocolate chip cookie. How come you haven't had one? Marissa: You have incredible willpower. Incredible. Scott: Yeah. I know they're delicious. I'm not really that much of a sweets guy, I guess, but I like that they are made with very good ingredients, and I like that they end up- Mark Miller: You're the perfect guy to make them, though, because I think anybody else would be tempted to just eat them all. This is starting to make sense, Shirley. I get the arrangement here. Sarah, have you tried- Sarah: They're wheat free. Mark Miller: What's that? Sarah: They're wheat free and gluten friendly. Mark Miller: Have you eaten them, Sarah? Sarah: Yeah, and I'm actually a diabetic, so of course I want to be eating all that stuff too. Marissa: Oh no. Mark Miller: But you have to control how much you eat. Sarah: What? Mark Miller: You can't eat too much. You have to control how much you're eating. Sarah: [inaudible 00:16:56]. I'm a diabetic, and actually, my parents own a candy store in Southampton. Marissa: Oh man. You must have amazing willpower. Mark Miller: Yeah, you better come with some willpower or you're in big trouble. What's your favorite thing, Sarah, that Scott makes? Sarah: The ginger snaps. Mark Miller: What's that? Sarah: I love the ginger. Well, we have other cookies also. We have ginger snaps, oatmeal raisin. We have biscotti sometimes, pumpkin blondies, chocolate chunkies, oatmeal raisin cookies. I love the ginger snaps. Mark Miller: I like them too. Here's my big question. How long would it take you to gather up a bunch of that stuff and get it up to New Hampshire from [inaudible 00:17:38]? Can you do that in about 20 minutes? That's it. I'm a huge ginger snap fan, and I will tell you what, you can buy those ginger snaps at the grocery store, but there is nothing like a good, I'll call it, homemade ginger snap. It's just something else. Sarah: I never ate them before I started working at the bakery. Mark Miller: There you go. Sarah: All the kids want them too, which is really interesting. Kids go for the ginger snaps. Mark Miller: Really? Sarah: Yeah. Mark Miller: That's amazing. Shirley, you do have a unique workforce here, and obviously a really good workforce. What's it like managing that workforce? I'm interested in where there're strengths that we might not realize or advantages that we might not realize from the group of adults that you do hire. Shirley: Well, I think that they're very consistent and dependable. As you see, I have people who have been with me for a long time, like Sarah, and Scott is always on time. He sets things up, as he said, at the beginning of shifts. That dependability factor is really big, and the reliability. I also think that many people are fearful that their challenges will get in the way of being productive, and I think that with a little education about how to accommodate or how to adjust things, even slightly... We have stools in the kitchen, we have a huge counter area. It's very big, so maybe six or eight people could be around it. But standing can be problematic for some of the adults, so we have stools that they can lean back on, which is not typical in a regular kitchen. Maybe it wouldn't be allowed in most kitchens, but we make accommodations as necessary. Shirley: But I think that they're also very persistent. Many of them have dealt with many challenges throughout their lives, and as a result, I think are stronger for it. I think that the tendency may be to think that they would give up and whatever, but with the right supports, they don't. They want to succeed so badly. They want to do a good job. They're very motivated in that way, from my experience in the employees that I have. Mark Miller: I think that's a really good point about if you accommodate properly, you can get great work. That's true across the board. We attend this conference every year called CSUN. One of the great talks that's done at CSUN is... Marissa, tell me if you remember. Is it Jared in the lion? Is that his first name? You may not, but there's this individual who works for the BBC, the British Broadcasting Company. I don't know if you guys have heard of that. He's on the autistic spectrum and he's in a really interesting spot on the spectrum where he's very self-aware, so he has this unique ability to really explain his experiences. One of the most brilliant concepts that have come out of this individual is, he says, "Don't disable me with your environment." Mark Miller: That's a way of saying, if you set me up in the proper environment... This isn't just for people who are autistic, but people who have all sorts of different disabilities. We deal with a lot of people who're blind and it's the same thing. If you set up the proper environment, they could be just as effective as the next person or, in many cases, more effective. I don't say that jokingly. I say that seriously, because some of our managers are blind, and when I tell people who are not familiar with this type of industry, they go, "What?" I think it's a very good point and a very interesting point that you bring up about. Sometimes, it's just about creating that proper environment that enables people to succeed. Marissa: Shirley, can you tell me how you acquire your employees? Do you have a pipeline? How do people apply to work for you? Shirley: At the beginning, it was mainly my previous clients or people that I knew in some schools because I work in school settings as well as a speech therapist. But then, people had just heard about me and I haven't had to advertise for people. I have a waiting list. They hear that something like this exists and parents call me from way afar the island, hours away, but that's just too far. Shirley: Our goal or hope is in the future that we will be able to recreate this somewhere farther down the island so that we can accommodate more people. It's very much a community-based business. Working here for so many years, I knew a lot of people in the community and particularly in the special needs community, but the retail stores are all very accommodating, want to give it a try. Some places, it just doesn't work. Other places, they're just pushing it out the door because they don't know what they're doing. We'd love to recreate that in other communities on Long Island. Marissa: Yeah, that'd be great. Mark Miller: Sarah and Scott, I have a question for you, and we'll start with Sarah and have you answer, and then Scott, you can answer after Sarah does. Can you talk to me about what this job means to you? If you think about before you got this job, or if Shirley didn't decide to start a bakery and you didn't have this opportunity, what does it mean for you that you do have the opportunity, that there is this job for you? Go ahead, Sarah, you can start. Sarah: First, can we go back to accommodations? Mark Miller: Sure. Sarah: Scott and I are very high-functioning, but there are other adults with disabilities that are lower-functioning that can only maybe chop chocolate dropping or something. We want to try to be aware that there are other adults with disabilities at the bakery that are less functional than us. They might need support staff or need helpers and things like that. So, just to be aware of it. Mark Miller: Yeah, that's a good point, a very good point. Thank you. Sarah: What the bakeries mean to me is self-confidence. It means friendships with people. It feels great to be at the bakery. Other jobs I've had, there's no support in the job. If I need to ask Shirley a question, I can always ask her. She can go over and guide me to show me how to do something. Just really a nice feeling. If I need to sit down, I can sit down. Mark Miller: Scott, what does having this job at the bakery mean to you? Scott: Well, I think it set up a huge lifestyle for me of friendships I've made, and it's taught me how to be organized as well as how to get along with people in friendships and people in the community. More importantly, the confidence that Shirley has given me in cooking, and it's given me a purpose. I've been really lucky to know with confidence a new program that I am on the board of, which I'm proud to say that it's a mental health program that teaches about mental health and the skills that are needed for dealing with it. We put on programs of movies and we do nutrition programs and stuff. In these meetings, we talk and we revolve around different topics, and it's a great thing that I feel like I've been able to do because I've had great confidence from working at this bakery. Marissa: That's amazing. Mark Miller: That's fantastic. I'll tell you what. Marissa, please chime in here too if you want. If you guys had asked me that question, I would answer it the same way. My job gives me confidence. It gives me purpose. Marissa and I, we work together, but we're also friends. A lot of people that I consider to be very good friends are people that I work with, and I think that those were wonderful answers and I think those are what we all get out of work. I think it's very important that we all have the opportunity to get those things. It's really about so much. I don't know, Marissa, if you would answer the questions the same way or not, but that's how I feel. Marissa: Yeah. I feel similarly, and I would like to say kudos to you, Shirley, for making an environment that enables your employees to feel this way. That's really important and it's a testament that so many of your employees have been there for so long that you've been able to create something amazing. Mark Miller: Yeah. I know that it's real and I know the connections that are being made are real because, Sarah, it was so important for you to point out the other individuals. You were saying that there were individuals that were lower-functioning but that they're just as important, and you recognize how important they are, and it's important to you that we understand that. That whole community of friends that you have is very important to you guys and it's just wonderful to see. I would echo the same thing Marissa just said, Shirley. It's fantastic that you came up with this. I hope that what you're creating here is a template. Shirley: Yeah. Well, that's the idea. We did a lot of board-building in the last two years, and now I think we have a very effective board. We have 11 members on the board and I think they're going to really help the bakery grow and develop. I'm really excited about that. In the future, there is that element of wanting to replicate and make a template. But I think that the first big goal is, you can see how functioning these guys are who are on the call today. They could work other places, and Sarah does, and Scott's taking on responsibilities in other places that really want to develop the training part of the program so that we can create some community awareness about employing these guys and recognizing their abilities. They can get more exposure out in the community and the community can be more aware of what their abilities are. Sarah: The other thing is I work by myself at the Southampton Chamber of Commerce. I have no coworkers, so I'm in the office by myself. It's nice to see people. I go off to the bakery once a month and help bake, or I do the Farmers Market and I could actually see people, whereas the Southampton Chamber, I'm by myself. I'm the only one there. Mark Miller: So, the bakery gives you really more of that social opportunity to be around other people. Sarah: Of course. It's there. I'm there by myself. My boss is not even there. Mark Miller: At the beginning of the show, Shirley, you talked about how you started the bakery and you talked about the due diligence that you did, and the people that you call that ran bakeries and all these resources that you leveraged to learn how to do this. My vision now is that the future for you is answering those types of calls, when the news stories, this podcast, stuff like that gets out there, that you're the one answering the phone and saying, "This is how we did it and this is my advice for you and that there're other people out there that are trying to replicate the success that you and your employees have had." I think that's wonderful. We need to wrap up the show, but I want to see if there's anything that anybody wants to add before we do that, that they think is important that we haven't talked about yet. Sarah: Well, I've actually known Shirley since I was two years old. Shirley was my pathologist, when I was two years old, coming to my house. [inaudible 00:30:52]. Mark Miller: So, she worked on speech with you? Sarah: When I was two, yeah, at my house. Shirley: I have a couple employees that are like that. I just wanted to add one more thing. I know that you're all about accessibility. I think that at the bakery, the environment is one thing, setting up the environment for 16 of us, but I also provide tools or supports, whatever that might be, in the environment. But it's also the accommodations that are just about taking breaks and scheduling so that they only work the number of hours per week that they feel comfortable, and maybe pushing them as I have with Scott. When he first started, it was just for a couple hours, and now Scott can work up to six hours for me sometimes. I think that it is being aware of who they are and where they are, and then being able to meet them there, and then go forward from there. Mark Miller: Wonderful point. Well, thank you all so much for sharing with us. I really appreciate it. You weren't just sharing about the business and your job itself, but you were sharing some personal things and the ways that it affects you, and I really appreciate your willingness to come on and share that with us because I think it's going to have an impact on people. This is important stuff, and it's important that people see your success. Scott and Sarah and Shirley, the three of you guys, whether you realize it or not, are leaders. You're role models. People can look up to you and say, "Wow, we can have that success too." You're paving the way and you're showing them how to do it. I really appreciate you guys coming on and doing that and sharing that with us. Sarah: Thank you. Mark Miller: You're welcome. Thank you guys. This is Mark Miller, thanking Shirley and Sarah and Scott and Marissa, and reminding you all to keep it accessible. Speaker 1: This podcast has been brought to you by the Paciello Group, the experts in digital accessibility. 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