Erica Soucie and A.J. Collette once led lives plagued by drugs, violence, guns, gangs and time behind bars. Now they’re more confident than ever those dark days are over, thanks to a nonprofit venture that began in a kitchen at Salt Lake Community College’s South City Campus.
Flourish Bakery, the social enterprise of the Utah nonprofit Unshackled, started with the belief even the most troubled, hardened people are not “disposable.” Founders of Flourish believe that, in order to break the cycle of recidivism and addiction, former inmates and addicts need skills training and employment opportunities that address all aspects of their lives. But they first needed a place where they could start a bakery.
Last year, when Flourish Executive Director Aimee Altizer, an award-winning pastry chef and Episcopal priest, was searching for an affordable place to locate the bakery, she was skeptical of what she might find, until she was invited by SLCC officials to South City Campus. “I was absolutely stunned,” Altizer says. “It was brand new, all state-of-the-art equipment. I was floored. It was beyond my wildest dreams – an incredible gift.” The two sides agreed on a lease, and in January, 2018 Flourish’s pilot program began with two full-time staff, a few volunteers and four interns. Among the interns were Soucie and Collette, who heard about the bakery through the Utah-based Odyssey House, which offers residential and outpatient recovery and treatment at several sites.
“It’s amazing – it has changed my life,” Soucie, 29, says about Flourish. “It’s giving me purpose. They care so much about us. And recovery comes first here.” She has been clean since early 2017 after years of drug addiction that started as a teen. At her lowest point, she lost custody of her three children. “Right now, I am trying to change my life and have a career and build myself a better life so that one day my kids can come back.”
Altizer and Jaynanne Yenchik, an assistant instructor at Flourish, have a combined 40 years of experience in the culinary industry, and they teach the interns baking skills and provide access to needed resources for other life issues. “I always wanted to find something that involved more than myself,” Yenchik says. Altizer stresses the bakery is not about giving handouts, but rather a hand up, an opportunity to begin again and transform lives.
The Flourish vision drew a parallel from SLCC Provost Clifton Sanders, who pointed out during the “Raise the Dough” fundraiser in July, the college’s vision is to be inclusive, provide a transformative education and strengthen the communities it serves through the success of its students. “The journey of many SLCC students is a walk of hope and discovery, a sojourn that cultivates confidence along with healing that shatters cycles of defeat and desperation and that revives families and entire communities,” Sanders said at the event. “Naturally, the work, passion, joy and success of Flourish to date resonates deeply with SLCC’s vision and role in our community.”
The goal of the fundraiser was to kick off efforts to raise the $750,000 Flourish Bakery needs to expand into a larger, permanent location in South Salt Lake possibly sometime in 2019. The Rt. Rev. Scott B. Hayashi of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah presented Flourish with a check for $100,000 at the event. “I happen to believe that there is no such thing as a disposable person,” Hayashi said. “If you really want to make change happen, you have to take action. We have had far, far too much of people praying and doing nothing. Keep up this good and holy work, and may you help many, many, many more people.”
The fundraiser drew appearances by Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams and West Valley City Police Deputy Chief Scott Buchanan, who is also a board member for Unshackled. “The best thing for our wallets is to help those in need get back on the road to self-sufficiency,” McAdams said.
Biskupski said Flourish is an example of one solution that is changing the model of treatment for addicts, offering them a second chance to be part of building a better city for everyone. Buchanan said he has seen Flourish make a real difference in people’s lives. “The main change I see is hope,” he said. “It’s hope that by working through a program like this, that the cycle of addiction can be broken and that by breaking that cycle of addiction, there is a pathway to gainful employment.”
Soucie and Collette would like to stay on full time with Flourish. Collette, 28, lives with his wife and four daughters, ages 3-14, in South Salt Lake. “Now I have my own place for the first time in my life,” he says. Flourish has become a metaphor for his life. “I love it. When I mess up a recipe, which is rare, I can backtrack and see where I went wrong, which is a lot like life. When you mess up, hopefully you can go back, find out what you did wrong and try again.”
