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The Bible may state that man cannot live by bread alone, but, potentially, for those leaving incarceration in the prison system, the making of bread may offer the opportunity to learn a trade and start a new life, according to local resident Marty McCormick.
McCormick and his wife, Wendy, are set to begin operating Rise Up Village Bakery, which will train people leaving the prison system, or returning citizens as Marty called them, the art of baking bread and the understanding of the process.
"I was working at the Clinton County Correctional Facility for five years as a volunteer, chaplain and counselor and I realized that a lot of the men or women I was working with had very little resources or opportunities once they left the jail. Oftentimes they couldn't get out unless they had a place to go," McCormick said.
His first idea was to start a residential program in addition to some type of a training program, but decided to scale his vision down a little bit.
"When I was volunteering there, I got on the computer trying to figure out what could help-what kinds of jobs or whatever," he said.
What McCormick discovered was a company called Dave's Killer Bread, which was co-owned by someone who had been incarcerated. About a third of their workforce had criminal records.
"I looked further and I found out that the food industry, especially bakeries and restaurants, are the largest employers of people with a criminal record," McCormick said.
"I found that there were a lot of places around the country, both bakeries and restaurants, that were set up just to train and help these individuals get back into the community, to be returned and restored to the community," he stated, adding, "so that's where I got the idea to do a bakery and partly because I like to bake at home."
McCormick also contacted a woman who has operated a bakery in Missouri for over six years working with the formerly incarcerated. During that time, she's only had about two people out of 30 who have returned to prison.
"All the rest have gotten good jobs," said McCormick.
McCormick pointed to his experiences growing up as another reason for wanting to help people who are struggling.
"I probably had this dream to do this for a long time, something of this nature. I've always felt a need to help people that are in need one way or another," he said.
"I grew up in a pretty poor family and knew and have a kind of compassion for those that need help from others," he added.
With two tempting loaves of bread just visible over his shoulder as he sat in the kitchen area of New Covenant United Church, McCormick shared that at this point they haven't really begun the bakery business end, but have been busy test baking, striving to perfect their product. He said that it will probably be May or June before they will be ready to accept trainees-his returning citizens.
"I'm working in collaboration with the various community agencies that also work with people returning to the community," he said.
"I'd like to find two (people) that would be willing and able and want to stay with this program, be employed with us here and help train new people coming in," McCormick said.
Our objective, of course, is to help restore these people to the community. One of the most important things is that they have some employment but they probably also need a place to live in addition to employment to get back into the mainstream," he said.
McCormick, his wife and a friend, Perry Landon are the only ones, at this point, involved with getting the bakery up and running, but he has sought the expertise of professional bakers in the area in helping to perfect his products.
When the bakery becomes functional, the plan is to sell their products, first through churches and the United Churches of Lycoming County, which is located in the same building and by word of mouth. All orders would be on a pre-order basis. The goal is to have a line of products that are tasty as well as healthy and nutritious.
"Eventually we'll hopefully get known well enough that we can sell to the general public and it will be open to anybody at any time," he said, added.
McCormick admitted that he has big dreams for the Rise Up Village Bakery. Eventually he'd like to be able to move from the leased kitchen at New Covenant and purchase or lease their own facility in order to bring in more trainees. He sees the potential for maybe setting up some kind of apprenticeship agreements with area businesses. Maybe someday there could be a storefront or cafe for the bakery.
For now, the venture is financed by McCormick and his wife, but the plan is to use money from the sales of their products to pay for their overhead and raw materials.
Again, he stressed that the main objective is to see the individuals returned to the community
"We're doing it by helping them develop a sense of hope that there's exciting possibilities for them. To get some training.We want them to be mentored either by some people here or through whatever services they're receiving," he said.
"We wanted the people initially to be under some kind of community supervision. McCormick said that the hope is that the bakery will become a ministry through the United Churches of Lycoming County.
Although he and his wife are Christians and the bakery will be under a Christian religion, those participating in the program will not be "preached at."
"I would like them to have a faith, but that has to be something they get outside of here," he said.
"We will mentor them with a Christian attitude of Christian love, but I'm not going to preach that," he said, adding that if there is an interest in the future he would lead a group during the evening.
One important thing that McCormick wants people to know is that this is not just his business.
"This needs to be a community effort...that's why we called it the Rise Up Village Bakery," he said.
"It's a community effort to help people that are returning to our community," he said.