New Bakery, Old Building

Scarlet’s Bakery is a social enterprise of Scarlet Hope established to provide jobs to women leaving the adult entertainment industry. They will provide delectable desserts to customers who value high-quality ingredients, fresh taste, and who desire to leverage their purchases for a greater good.

The bakery will create homemade pastries and fine desserts that will be served in their retail location, and local events. Scarlet’s already has a long line of customers wanting to purchase goods for meetings and events before they’ve even opened their doors!

Back in the fall of 2014, Access Ventures endorsed Scarlet’s Bakery for a Kiva loan of $5,000 when they were in need of additional kitchen equipment. Having known the owner for several years we served as a Kiva trustee and endorsed their business for having great character and a strong mission.

In addition, we also provided follow-on debt financing as well as business development support to help the business launch later this year. The current status of the bakery is focusing on the reconstruction of an old building to become a new bakery in Shelby Park.

On Saturday, we were joined by over 150 volunteers from the community to help with the initial renovations for Scarlet’s bakery. The volunteers worked hard creating a dust bowl of old plaster as they exposed the original brick to be refinished. They also removed a few remaining interior walls to allow for a large open kitchen space.

Revitalizing a neighborhood is a community effort, and we’re always excited to see so many volunteers and organizations join us in building something bigger than ourselves. If you or your organization is interested in volunteering at our work days then please connect with us.