ROANOKE, Va. (WFXR) – House of Bread was created 8 years ago as a way to help give women a fresh start by building relationships, and baking. It serves women who have been incarcerated… suffering from substance abuse or domestic violence.
Lisa Goad is an avid baker. She was brought onto the House of Bread team when it started. Now 8 years later, she serves as the program coordinator, and she never knew how many women she’d be able to reach through the kitchen.
“It has really opened my eyes to the challenges that these women face in the world,” said Lisa Goad, Program Coordinator for House of Bread, “Things that were unimaginable to me as a person who has not struggled with resources.”
Goad says almost 100 women have completed the six week long program. They meet twice a week to work on life and job skills, like building resumes, practicing interviews and customer service. Some weeks, the women meet in the kitchen to bake, which leads to what the organizers say is the most important part of the program: the relationships they build.
“Nobody succeeds in life. Nobody has health and life without other people along the way. And some of us are lucky to have a lot of those people,” said Noelle Edwards, the outreach coordinator for House of Bread, “So at House of Bread, we want to provide that for other people. We want women to be able to look back and say, you know, somebody somebody loved me. Somebody believed in me.”
The program is always looking for new mentors to pair up with students.
“We recruit mentors to help students. And that’s important. But mentors also are changed in the process. They are learning from students,” said Edwards, “I learned from students. I am always very impressed by the resilience of the women who are part of the program.”
After the students bake, they go to farmers markets to sell their goods to the community, giving these women customer service experience. This session they’ll be selling goods at Black Dog Salvage on February 5th and 19th.
To sign up to mentor, or learn more you can go to their website here.