WEBVTT
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iHeartRadio Community Access. We are here with Myra Rivera, the
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Director of Social Enterprises at Forge City Works. How are you?
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Good. How are you? Thank you. Good.
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Thank you for coming in. So I know that you
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have got a lot going on. You got a recent promotion.
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We'll talk about that in a little bit. But for
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people who are not familiar, what is Forge City Works
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and what do you do here in the Hartford community?
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So Forge City Works is a company inside of the
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Frog Hollow community in Hartford and we are a social enterprise.
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So we have three businesses where we run a training
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program and every dollar that's made in any of those
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businesses goes back into those training programs that we have.
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That's awesome. A big part of your mission is helping
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people overcome barriers to employment. Tell me a little bit
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about the culinary and hospitality training program and how that
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helps out.
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So we have what we call youth, 18 to 26
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year olds who have barriers to employment. And that can
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be any number of things from justice involved to no
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skills on their resume, so they're struggling to find any jobs.
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And we train them for 16 weeks on culinary and hospitality.
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And the main important thing about that is they get
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a paycheck every two weeks for that, which is huge
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in order to be able to pay for a cell phone, vehicles, apartments,
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so on. So they get paid for 16 weeks of training.
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The first eight weeks are hard and soft skills. So
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the cooking labs, they're sauteing, they're frying, they're doing butchery,
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And they're also doing classroom work. So building their resume,
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learning professionalism, emotional regulation, which is huge. Learning how to
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call out, surprisingly, is a big thing that people don't
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know how to do. And then for the remaining eight weeks,
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they're in shadow shifts throughout the entire organization. So all
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of the social enterprises, they're learning how to cook. They're
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learning how to be a barista. They're learning how to
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cater weddings, and they're also going into our grocery store,
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which is a fair price model grocery store. So they're
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learning the retail side as well.
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So they pretty much can take any skill from any
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of those different areas and then go out and get
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a job and become somebody that is employed.
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Correct. It's very transferable. It doesn't necessarily have to be culinary.
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You know, the skills of learning how to professionally call
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out and and, you know, the resume building and all
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of those things are transferable for sure. But our goal
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is to after their shadow shifts, they go off into
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internships and externships. And what that means is they are
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working in actual live locations other than ours for an
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entire year. And we're following them and making sure that
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they're in a good spot. The culture is right. that
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they have room for growth. And that's the most important part.
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We want to get them on a career path after
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the training program.
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Absolutely. That's awesome. Let's talk a little bit about the
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grocery on broad. Tell me a little bit about what
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makes it unique and how it helps families in Hartford.
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Absolutely. So the grocery on broad is a fair price
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model grocery store in Frog Hollow. Frog Hollow right now
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is a food swamp, meaning there's tons of food sources,
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just not healthy food sources. The closest grocery store from
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our location is about two bus rides out. So most
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folks who do not have transportation have to take two
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buses with loads of groceries. So the food access was needed.
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So we have everything, staple foods. We have fresh fruits
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and vegetables. We have milk. We have meats, local products
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as well. And what's special about our store in general
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is the fair price model that we have. So what
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that means is every family, depending on their household size
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and household income, qualifies for different discounts. The high discount
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highest discount we offer right now is 40 off which
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is huge considering the prices of grocery nowadays so most
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of our folks about 70 to 80 percent of our
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folks are qualifying for that 40 mark so it's obvious
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that is needed for the affordable um food and the
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access of it as.
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Well awesome um let's talk about you for a second
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now you were a general manager uh for a while
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let me start this again Let's talk about you for
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a second. I know you were the GM for a while,
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but you're transitioning into a new role as the director
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of social enterprises. Tell me a little bit about what
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your position involves and how all the different parts of
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Forge City Works all kind of work together within what
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you're doing.
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So a little back story. I've actually been with Ford
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City Works for 15 years. I started as the culinary
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baking intern and grew up in Hartford myself. So learning
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how the program works and seeing it change has been
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huge for me. And it's been impactful because I was
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one of those youth with the barriers to employment. So
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it's become part of who I am.
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And.
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you know, progressively worked my way up to the general
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manager of the grocery store. I helped open it up from,
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you know, the ground up, help bring in the products,
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surveying the community and everything, making sure that was good
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for them. And now in my new role, I'm the
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director of social enterprise. So I'm just making sure that
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all enterprises are running smoothly and we're doing what we're
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supposed to be doing for those trainees and giving them
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the best shot that they got.
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So really, when you look at the big picture, everything
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that we've already kind of covered in the interview, you
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are an example of a success story from the program,
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building it from the ground up.
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I would absolutely say so.
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Absolutely. Very cool. You also have got Fire by Forge
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restaurant and a catering business. Tell us a little bit
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about those for people that may be unfamiliar and how
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they tie into the overall mission.
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Yeah, so Fire by Forge Restaurant is, again, a social enterprise.
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So every dollar you go in, and that's the best
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way to support. Most people ask that, what is the
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best way to support Forge City Works? And it's just
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to come into any of our social enterprises. So every
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dollar spent at the restaurant, grocery, or the catering, when
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you order through catering, goes right back into those training programs.
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Another great thing that we do at Forge City Works
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is we have a 19% service charge on all of
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our items. And what that offers is our waitstaff to
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have livable wages. So we have regular minimum wage versus
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waitstaff minimum wage in Connecticut. So our waitstaff are at
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$ 17 an hour. And it also gives them benefits to insurance,
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dental insurance, and they get, you know, the... Shared wages
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goes out throughout the restaurant kitchen, which is never what
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happens in most restaurants. They always just get their hourly pay.
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So the tipping goes into the restaurant as well. The kitchen,
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I should say. So in that we have all the
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stations for the trainees to be working on with real customers.
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So you're going to be a waitstaff. You're going to
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be dealing with real customers. You're going to be barista.
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You're going to be dealing with real customers in the kitchen.
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It's a real life kitchen. It's hot. things are thrown
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at you, let's go. We got to prep things out.
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So you get the real life experience, but in a
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controlled environment and in a loving environment with the trainer
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who's right next to you. Same goes for catering. Catering
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is real life food going out to places. We do weddings,
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we do bat mitzvahs, we do a bunch of stuff.
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And they get that real life experience of cooking for
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over a hundred people at times. And even the bake
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shop as well, making thousands of cookies. But We also
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offer cooking classes where you do like a little bit
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of a battle. So it's team building. So folks go
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in and get a gift card to the grocery store
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and they shop for their ingredients and they come back
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and it's really cool to watch that. But every single
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dollar goes back into the mission.
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Awesome. For somebody listening right now who wants to support
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what you're doing, what's the easiest way to get involved?
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Easiest way is just to come and shop on any
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of them. Come to the restaurant and buy a cup
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of coffee to renting out the back room for your party.
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catering if you need some box lunches for 10 people
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if you need box lunches for 150 people shop at
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the grocery store even if you don't think you qualify
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it still supports the mission even if you pay at
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full price and we also have monthly donors who subscribe
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to be a monthly donor it could be as little
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as ten dollars or whatever much you can afford for
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that month that is the simplest ways to come support
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any of the social enterprises or be a monthly donor.
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Is there any information online that people can get if
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they're hearing this right now?
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Yes. So ForgeCityWorks.org is our main website. We also have FireByForge.com, GroceryOnBroad.com
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for any, you know, splits. But everything is found on ForgeCityWorks.org. Awesome.
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Well, Myra Rivera, Director of Social Enterprises at Forge City Works,
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thank you for coming in and thank you for the
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great work that you're doing here in Hartford.
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Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
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iHeartRadio Community Access. We are here with Myra Rivera, the
2
00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:07.759
Director of Social Enterprises at Forge City Works. How are you?
3
00:00:08.080 --> 00:00:09.359
Good. How are you? Thank you. Good.
4
00:00:09.439 --> 00:00:11.160
Thank you for coming in. So I know that you
5
00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:13.259
have got a lot going on. You got a recent promotion.
6
00:00:13.279 --> 00:00:15.269
We'll talk about that in a little bit. But for
7
00:00:15.310 --> 00:00:18.410
people who are not familiar, what is Forge City Works
8
00:00:18.469 --> 00:00:20.449
and what do you do here in the Hartford community?
9
00:00:21.129 --> 00:00:24.570
So Forge City Works is a company inside of the
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Frog Hollow community in Hartford and we are a social enterprise.
11
00:00:29.320 --> 00:00:32.070
So we have three businesses where we run a training
12
00:00:32.109 --> 00:00:34.929
program and every dollar that's made in any of those
13
00:00:34.969 --> 00:00:38.070
businesses goes back into those training programs that we have.
14
00:00:38.369 --> 00:00:40.630
That's awesome. A big part of your mission is helping
15
00:00:40.670 --> 00:00:43.619
people overcome barriers to employment. Tell me a little bit
16
00:00:43.659 --> 00:00:47.460
about the culinary and hospitality training program and how that
17
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:48.000
helps out.
18
00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:51.759
So we have what we call youth, 18 to 26
19
00:00:51.759 --> 00:00:54.320
year olds who have barriers to employment. And that can
20
00:00:54.340 --> 00:00:57.310
be any number of things from justice involved to no
21
00:00:57.350 --> 00:01:00.070
skills on their resume, so they're struggling to find any jobs.
22
00:01:01.009 --> 00:01:05.069
And we train them for 16 weeks on culinary and hospitality.
23
00:01:05.609 --> 00:01:08.599
And the main important thing about that is they get
24
00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:10.840
a paycheck every two weeks for that, which is huge
25
00:01:11.439 --> 00:01:15.159
in order to be able to pay for a cell phone, vehicles, apartments,
26
00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:20.159
so on. So they get paid for 16 weeks of training.
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00:01:20.739 --> 00:01:22.909
The first eight weeks are hard and soft skills. So
28
00:01:22.920 --> 00:01:26.250
the cooking labs, they're sauteing, they're frying, they're doing butchery,
29
00:01:26.780 --> 00:01:29.579
And they're also doing classroom work. So building their resume,
30
00:01:29.680 --> 00:01:33.519
learning professionalism, emotional regulation, which is huge. Learning how to
31
00:01:33.579 --> 00:01:36.980
call out, surprisingly, is a big thing that people don't
32
00:01:37.030 --> 00:01:39.730
know how to do. And then for the remaining eight weeks,
33
00:01:39.750 --> 00:01:43.670
they're in shadow shifts throughout the entire organization. So all
34
00:01:43.689 --> 00:01:45.950
of the social enterprises, they're learning how to cook. They're
35
00:01:45.969 --> 00:01:47.950
learning how to be a barista. They're learning how to
36
00:01:48.840 --> 00:01:52.069
cater weddings, and they're also going into our grocery store,
37
00:01:52.890 --> 00:01:54.989
which is a fair price model grocery store. So they're
38
00:01:55.010 --> 00:01:56.909
learning the retail side as well.
39
00:01:57.290 --> 00:02:00.150
So they pretty much can take any skill from any
40
00:02:00.170 --> 00:02:02.650
of those different areas and then go out and get
41
00:02:02.689 --> 00:02:04.670
a job and become somebody that is employed.
42
00:02:04.950 --> 00:02:09.500
Correct. It's very transferable. It doesn't necessarily have to be culinary.
43
00:02:09.539 --> 00:02:12.979
You know, the skills of learning how to professionally call
44
00:02:13.080 --> 00:02:16.300
out and and, you know, the resume building and all
45
00:02:16.319 --> 00:02:19.409
of those things are transferable for sure. But our goal
46
00:02:19.569 --> 00:02:23.129
is to after their shadow shifts, they go off into
47
00:02:23.189 --> 00:02:27.259
internships and externships. And what that means is they are
48
00:02:27.319 --> 00:02:31.479
working in actual live locations other than ours for an
49
00:02:31.520 --> 00:02:33.969
entire year. And we're following them and making sure that
50
00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:37.719
they're in a good spot. The culture is right. that
51
00:02:37.740 --> 00:02:40.039
they have room for growth. And that's the most important part.
52
00:02:40.060 --> 00:02:41.819
We want to get them on a career path after
53
00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:42.580
the training program.
54
00:02:42.819 --> 00:02:45.080
Absolutely. That's awesome. Let's talk a little bit about the
55
00:02:45.139 --> 00:02:47.180
grocery on broad. Tell me a little bit about what
56
00:02:47.219 --> 00:02:49.699
makes it unique and how it helps families in Hartford.
57
00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:52.159
Absolutely. So the grocery on broad is a fair price
58
00:02:52.199 --> 00:02:54.879
model grocery store in Frog Hollow. Frog Hollow right now
59
00:02:54.919 --> 00:02:58.379
is a food swamp, meaning there's tons of food sources,
60
00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:01.819
just not healthy food sources. The closest grocery store from
61
00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:05.689
our location is about two bus rides out. So most
62
00:03:05.729 --> 00:03:08.610
folks who do not have transportation have to take two
63
00:03:08.650 --> 00:03:12.990
buses with loads of groceries. So the food access was needed.
64
00:03:13.629 --> 00:03:16.289
So we have everything, staple foods. We have fresh fruits
65
00:03:16.340 --> 00:03:19.979
and vegetables. We have milk. We have meats, local products
66
00:03:20.060 --> 00:03:24.379
as well. And what's special about our store in general
67
00:03:24.560 --> 00:03:27.639
is the fair price model that we have. So what
68
00:03:27.659 --> 00:03:31.180
that means is every family, depending on their household size
69
00:03:31.340 --> 00:03:34.460
and household income, qualifies for different discounts. The high discount
70
00:03:34.879 --> 00:03:37.469
highest discount we offer right now is 40 off which
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is huge considering the prices of grocery nowadays so most
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of our folks about 70 to 80 percent of our
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folks are qualifying for that 40 mark so it's obvious
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that is needed for the affordable um food and the
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access of it as.
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Well awesome um let's talk about you for a second
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now you were a general manager uh for a while
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let me start this again Let's talk about you for
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a second. I know you were the GM for a while,
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but you're transitioning into a new role as the director
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of social enterprises. Tell me a little bit about what
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your position involves and how all the different parts of
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Forge City Works all kind of work together within what
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you're doing.
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So a little back story. I've actually been with Ford
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City Works for 15 years. I started as the culinary
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baking intern and grew up in Hartford myself. So learning
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how the program works and seeing it change has been
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huge for me. And it's been impactful because I was
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one of those youth with the barriers to employment. So
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it's become part of who I am.
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And.
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you know, progressively worked my way up to the general
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manager of the grocery store. I helped open it up from,
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you know, the ground up, help bring in the products,
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surveying the community and everything, making sure that was good
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for them. And now in my new role, I'm the
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director of social enterprise. So I'm just making sure that
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all enterprises are running smoothly and we're doing what we're
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supposed to be doing for those trainees and giving them
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the best shot that they got.
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So really, when you look at the big picture, everything
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that we've already kind of covered in the interview, you
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are an example of a success story from the program,
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building it from the ground up.
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I would absolutely say so.
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Absolutely. Very cool. You also have got Fire by Forge
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restaurant and a catering business. Tell us a little bit
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about those for people that may be unfamiliar and how
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they tie into the overall mission.
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Yeah, so Fire by Forge Restaurant is, again, a social enterprise.
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So every dollar you go in, and that's the best
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way to support. Most people ask that, what is the
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best way to support Forge City Works? And it's just
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to come into any of our social enterprises. So every
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dollar spent at the restaurant, grocery, or the catering, when
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you order through catering, goes right back into those training programs.
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Another great thing that we do at Forge City Works
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is we have a 19% service charge on all of
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our items. And what that offers is our waitstaff to
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have livable wages. So we have regular minimum wage versus
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waitstaff minimum wage in Connecticut. So our waitstaff are at
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$ 17 an hour. And it also gives them benefits to insurance,
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dental insurance, and they get, you know, the... Shared wages
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goes out throughout the restaurant kitchen, which is never what
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happens in most restaurants. They always just get their hourly pay.
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So the tipping goes into the restaurant as well. The kitchen,
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I should say. So in that we have all the
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stations for the trainees to be working on with real customers.
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So you're going to be a waitstaff. You're going to
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be dealing with real customers. You're going to be barista.
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You're going to be dealing with real customers in the kitchen.
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It's a real life kitchen. It's hot. things are thrown
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at you, let's go. We got to prep things out.
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So you get the real life experience, but in a
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controlled environment and in a loving environment with the trainer
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who's right next to you. Same goes for catering. Catering
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is real life food going out to places. We do weddings,
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we do bat mitzvahs, we do a bunch of stuff.
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And they get that real life experience of cooking for
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over a hundred people at times. And even the bake
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shop as well, making thousands of cookies. But We also
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offer cooking classes where you do like a little bit
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of a battle. So it's team building. So folks go
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in and get a gift card to the grocery store
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and they shop for their ingredients and they come back
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and it's really cool to watch that. But every single
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dollar goes back into the mission.
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Awesome. For somebody listening right now who wants to support
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what you're doing, what's the easiest way to get involved?
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Easiest way is just to come and shop on any
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of them. Come to the restaurant and buy a cup
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of coffee to renting out the back room for your party.
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catering if you need some box lunches for 10 people
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if you need box lunches for 150 people shop at
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the grocery store even if you don't think you qualify
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it still supports the mission even if you pay at
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full price and we also have monthly donors who subscribe
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to be a monthly donor it could be as little
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as ten dollars or whatever much you can afford for
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that month that is the simplest ways to come support
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any of the social enterprises or be a monthly donor.
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Is there any information online that people can get if
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they're hearing this right now?
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Yes. So ForgeCityWorks.org is our main website. We also have FireByForge.com, GroceryOnBroad.com
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for any, you know, splits. But everything is found on ForgeCityWorks.org. Awesome.
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Well, Myra Rivera, Director of Social Enterprises at Forge City Works,
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thank you for coming in and thank you for the
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great work that you're doing here in Hartford.
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Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
