Essential Employees

While there are many things to argue about on the op-ed pages of this newspaper these days, it is easy to forget that we have much to celebrate on the South Fork — in particular, the number of residents who have dedicated their time and energy toward making meaningful and profound changes in the lives of our friends and neighbors.

Founded in 2016, the South Fork Bakery has offered meaningful employment opportunities to those with special needs on the East End — the bakery’s cookies and bars are baked, packaged, marketed, and sold by over a dozen neurodiverse adults with full- and part-time jobs with the organization. Late last year, the nonprofit’s founder, Shirley Ruch, announced that the bakery would broaden its mission to include training and employment outreach services — taking the knowledge from years of running the bakery out of its Amagansett location, and expanding opportunities for adults with special needs across Suffolk County to find work and a purpose.

For Ruch, a speech and language therapist who works with children with autism, founding the bakery was a solution to a problem she witnessed through her profession — that as her students became adults, there was nowhere for them to work.

South Fork Bakery is a success story — the impetus for expanding the nonprofit’s mission is because there are many people who want to work at the bakery, but it is maxed out. By training employees and finding meaningful work for them elsewhere, the bakery can help scores more find their place in the business world. Ruch hopes to expand training out of the culinary world and into sales, hospitality, janitorial and clerical employment opportunities — although she has cautioned that this growth will be slow to start.

As the nonprofit expands, it will, of course, need our support. On Sunday, May 7, from 1 to 3 p.m., local bakers will face off at Scoville Hall in Amagansett to test their skills at the first East End Bake Off, appropriately coined, “competition with a cause.” Tickets are available to watch the competition unfold and, of course, try some tasty treats.

It’s a sweet opportunity to enjoy a true community event, while also recognizing that supporting the South Fork Bakery (visit southoforkbakery.org for tickets!) is supporting our family, our neighbors and our friends who are trying to find their own place in this special world.