Bread Project

The Bread Project is a 501(c)(3) public benefit corporation located in San Francisco Bay Area with facilities in Emeryville and Berkeley. Its mission is to empower individuals with limited resources on their path to self-sufficiency through skills instruction, on-the-job training in our social enterprises and assistance with establishing a career in the food industry. Its model consists of a rigorous culinary/bakery training program, extensive workplace readiness coaching, on-the-job experience, employer outreach for job placement, and long-term follow-up support.

History

The Bread Project was co-founded in 2001 by homeless advocate Lucie Buchbinder, a Holocaust survivor originally from Vienna, Austria who immigrated to the US in 1938, and Susan Phillips, a social worker from San Francisco. They received initial support from the San Francisco Baking Institute, which agreed to provide training and equipment at cost. Both had managed public housing and other low-income housing projects and saw the need to train residents for more steady jobs, which they felt would be available in the San Francisco Bay Area's growing bakery industry. Buchbinder and Phillips retired from active management in 2005. Buchbinder died in 2007 in a train accident at Jack London Square in Oakland.