The long-awaited dream of having a bakery at the Connie Mulder Centre has finally come true.
Vernon’s Bakery, which was officially opened on Friday, 6 July, will be in the hands of the residents at the centre.
“It has always been a dream to have a bakery, because we have 220 disabled persons we need to take care of,” said the CEO of the Centre, Gordon Henney.
Gordon also said the centre’s demand for bread was immensely high and prompted the establishment of the bakery.
“We thought we could actually achieve two things at the same time. We thought we could take care of our own needs, and have our residents trained by a person with baking experience,” Gordon said.
He said for now, the workers will work under supervision until they can work independently.
“Later on we will expand, and maybe see if we can get customers in and make it a financially viable project, but, at this point, our main aim is to train workers and to take care of our needs.”
He said depending on how the bakery expands, and what they are going to do there, a lot more people could be trained.
“We have a fully fledged kitchen as well, so the minute we are done training them, we can pass them on to the kitchen and take on more new recruits.”
He said the ultimate goal for the centre is to have residents that are equipped to actively do some worthwhile task. The centre is committed to ensuring that its residents do not sit idle.
“All of them are involved in one or other workshop, because we need to keep them busy.”
He said even those who are in the frail section are doing basic activities such as picture cutting and drawing, colouring-in, basic numeracy and literacy in order to remain active.
Vernon’s Bakery was named after Vernon Woods, who generously supplied all the equipment for the bakery.
Do you perhaps have more information pertaining to this story? Email us at randfonteinherald@caxton.co.za (please remember to include your contact details in the email) or phone us on 011 693 3671.
For free daily local news on the West Rand, also visit our sister newspaper websites
Remember to visit our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages to let your voice be heard!
