Image caption.
Image subcaption.

THE BAKERY - PANADERIA "PAZ Y BIEN"

By the year 2003, we understood and we felt that our charitable endeavours could not be sustained just through charitable donations. Having come to this realization, we had to find something to do that would financially sustain ourselves. After some time thinking about it, we came up with the idea of a bakery. Our thinking was that the bakery would provide a solution to two of our main concerns:

  1. Self sustainability with respect to feeding the community, in particular providing bread for the elderly, the orphans, the children at Kindergarten and meals for families at the Nutritional Center
  2. Financial support, that we might actually be able to sell some of the baked items and raise some much needed funds

The setting up of a bakery is not as simple as it seems! There were many challenges beginning with a proper location. What seemed to be the best option, was an empty room from the old age home (Hogar de Ancianos). After preparing this room to become our bakery, we had to obtain an oven. It proved to be a more difficult task than originally anticipated. Eventually, we were able to obtain a second class oven and many of the supplies needed to make baked goods, such as: flour, margarine, salt, tons of sugar for pastries, dozens of giant trays, long high stands for the trays and mixers, and two bakers. You name it, we had to find it! It was extremely difficult to find these supplies and materials in Tegucicalpa, the capital city and even more difficult, here in Olancho 200km away.

 

After five long and arduous weeks, the bakery was set up and "ready for business." It was in December'2003, close to Christmas, that the bakery officially began operation. We managed to bake our first cake, some pastries and simply bread. One of the things we did not anticipate is the wonderful smell that the bakery produced while the goods were baking. This alone eliminated any publicity and promotion costs, because people started coming from all around the parish to inquire about what we were doing. It was the "smell" of the bread that brought us our first customers!!!

 

With all the initial success of the bakery, we soon realized that we were going to need a new location, a proper facility for a bakery. To accommodate this need, we built a new and proper bakery. Today, to make a long story short, the "Panaderia Paz y Bien," is a household name all over Olancho. Currently, we have nineteen full time bakers, who begin work at 4:00am and continue until late into the night. We have three small ovens for pastries and one large oven for simple bread. Our daily usage of flour for bread is twelve bags of flour, with each bag weighing 100lbs. The bread we make is more than enough for all the projects at the mission and represents a savings of having to purchase food, of approximately more than one thousand dollars a month. The bakery production affords us to sell many baked goods each day. The proceeds from the sales pays for the salaries of all nineteen bakers and nine employees at the old age home (Hogar de Ancianos). In addition, the sales revenue allows us to purchase the necessary baking ingredients to keep the bakery operating each and every day.

 

The bakery is in fact, an extension of the Hogar de Ancianos. It is for this very fact alone, that the both share the same name, "Paz y Bien" (Peace and All Good), which is a standard Franciscan blessing for the entire Franciscan family.