A Different Kind of Bakery Needs Your Dough

Photo credit: Courtesy Nicole Franzen

Jessamyn Rodriguez is a name you should know. She’s the wildly impressive founder and CEO of Hot Bread Kitchen, an organization that “increases economic security for foreign-born and low-income women and men by opening access to the billion dollar specialty food industry,” according to its website. (She was also the first-ever woman to be hired as a baker at French chef Daniel Boulud’s renowned New York restaurant Daniel.)

Not only does Hot Bread Kitchen hire women in need of work, it also sells products they are familiar with by featuring breads that come from the same countries they do. That means Moroccan ms’men, Polish bialys, and other ethnic breads from around the world. “We’re embracing bread baking as a form of cultural identity and art,” says Hot Bread sales coordinator Nikki Tourigny in this video.

Rodriguez launched a Kickstarter campaign to send two minority women through Hot Bread’s baking school, and she has four days and about $5,000 to go. If she reaches what she’s calling her Women Bake Bread Scholarship goal, those two women will receive 8-10 months of paid, on-the-job training, two hours of English classes weekly, and assistance getting good jobs in the baking industry. The reward for backers isn’t just the knowledge that you’ve done something good; it’s quite tasty. Read more about the campaign here, and let us know if you decide to help.

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Your First Loaf of Bread
14 Smart Ways to Use Stale Bread
Make Banana Bread and Use Up Those Overripe Fruits