Vyzyrchanka Homemade Bakery – DePaul Yummies  

While establishing Community in Dialogue rehabilitation centers we had the idea to create a social enterprise at established centers. After all, considerable resources are required to cover current expenditures related to the maintenance of the centers. People who ask for help and are undergoing a program to overcome addictions are usually no longer able to pay for treatment. This happens due to the fact that at this point they often remain without anything, without families, jobs, savings, friends… Addiction and correspondent lifestyle destroy and take away everything that a person has. Therefore, we dreamed to earn money for treatment with own efforts, together with community members. We did not want to just ask charity-givers for donations for our maintenance. We aimed to create a product demanded by people, to offer them to buy it and thus to receive funds for the maintenance and activities of the centers.

When this idea was finally shaped, we started actively looking for activity that we could implement. At that moment girls undergoing a rehab program have daily baked bread for almost two years for the needs of women’s and men’s centers as a part of occupational therapy. And they did it quite well and tasty.

The search for the form of social entrepreneurship was in process. In summer 2015 I visited Impact Hub Odesa — various social projects were presented on their platform. We liked the presentation of Walnut House social bakery from Lviv made by Yuri Lopatynski most of all. After his speech, I clearly understood that we would have our own social bakery. We began to communicate with Yuri, his experience inspired us and empowered to dream. Exactly to dream as at that time we had neither premises for our bakery nor equipment. Walnut House sincerely shared their experience; I visited their bakery in Lviv several times. After that we have formed a clear vision – we start the construction of the bakery at the women’s rehabilitation center in Vyzyrka village.

We set the following objectives and tasks:

—to provide rehabilitation centers with bread;

— to offer the baker’s products to the community and first to cover the expenses of the centers with this incomes,  and second, to spread and develop in society the idea of charity and responsibility for the needy, who are no longer capable to overcome their problems;

— to create a place of employment for those who have completed the rehab program;

— to provide rehabilitants with option to acquire skills of a baker, which they will need in the future while looking for a job;

— to offer occupational therapy considering that the work on the maintenance of the bakery is of great benefit to those who perform it.

The paradox is that soon after this clear and transparent vision has been formed and the architectural design of the new bakery has been outlined a donor responded and agreed to build the appropriate premises. Construction was started in early summer 2016.

Meanwhile, we were looking for charity givers to help us to purchase necessary bakery equipment. In communication with Walnut House we have already made a list of required equipment for full operation of the bakery. Consulate General of Poland in Kyiv responded to this need and wished to support our social bakery project.

At the same time I came back to the social hub platform in Odesa, where together with enthusiasts and volunteers we developed the logotype and the slogan for the bakery of our dreams. The name emerged almost at the first meetings — “DePaul Yummies”. Why the name is this? We would like our products to be delicious so that people wanted to purchase and taste it again and again. The name includes DePaul as St. Vincent de Paul is the initiator of serving and helping the poor and his love was infinitely creative. That’s why his name is included the name of the bakery.

Our logo includes the inscription “Homemade Bakery”, and thus we emphasize that it is not a big commercial project. And the inscription “Vyzyrchanka” identifies us with the village where we are located and with the inhabitants. We make it clear that we want to be a part of the local community, actively participate in its life, and offer home-made fragrant bread almost daily.

The slogan of our bakery is “BUY, TASTE, and SAVE HUMAN LIFE”. In such way we want to inform our consumers of the meaning of our activities. We want also to pay attention to the fact that our bakery is not aimed at commerce but seeks to help people to overcome their addiction and thus to return to society and become its full members.

Construction of the bakery ended in the beginning of winter 2016, and on December 10, 2016 a solemn consecration of the building and equipment was held; it was attended by Ukrainian and Italian fathers, as well as by a representative of the Consulate General and friends of the Community in Dialogue.

A full operation of the bakery required a few months of preparatory work such as connection and grounding of electrical equipment, study of oven programs, adjustment and minor repair of equipment as it was used, and most importantly, attempts to bake bread, pasty and cookies for our own needs.

The sale of bread and buns began in mid-June 2017. DePaul Yummies bakery has been operating for almost a month now. We have more and more orders as people really enjoy our pastry. We are very thankful to the mother of Fr. Vitaliy, Iryna Andriivna Novak for the quality and taste of the products. Mrs. Iryna spent almost her whole life working as a pastry chef and now being retired she agreed to come from Transcarpathia to help us open the bakery and start up its operation. Therefore, no wonder that the most delicious bread is called “Transcarpathian”. Community in Dialogue is very grateful to Mrs. Iryna for her contribution and assistance at the initial stage of establishment of our social bakery.

Today we deliver bread and buns to five settlements. Daily we bake 200 loaves of bread and 200 buns for sale.

We ask for your prayer support and for benevolence.

Our current needs:

— we need to purchase an electric generator in case of power outage which happens frequently here. The work of the bakery is paralyzed in such cases and we can no longer complete orders and take risks to lose customers;

— we need to purchase a large weighing-machine for at least 50 kg;

— we need designers to develop packaging for cookies and buns. We want to place information on the philosophy of DePaul Yummies social bakery on the packaging so that people know how we use the money received for the products;

— we need volunteers to develop a website so that  we could sell products and inform about the activities of the centers and about our services;

— we need consultations and tips on improvement of operations in the bakery, on innovations in product manufacturing and on organization of technological processes.

Our objectives:

— to increase volume of sales to maximize self-financing of the centers;

— to bring the idea of charity to society, encouraging local communities to take responsibility for solving social problems.

27/07/2017