Pastry shop’s new owners committed to employing people with disabilities

The aroma of baked goodies greets customers as they enter Bill’s Pastry Shop on Bay Street, just as in years past.

But this is a restored version of the iconic bakery, still in the heart of what was the busiest commercial area in Lynchburg in the 1970s — Memorial Avenue near what was then Pittman Plaza.

Many of her customers come in the door and tell her how they came there as children or that their parents did, said Shelley Reichard, new owner of Bill’s Pastry Shop and most importantly, of the late Bill Wells’ recipes.

She loves to hear it.

“We signed papers February 28 to close on the bakery,” she said. They opened March 17, and think of it as a family business, just as it was for Bill and Gertrude Wells.

But it is also a component of Reichard’s commitment to employment for people with disabilities. She also owns Commonwealth Supportive Services, a

supported employment agency, and the non-profit Commonwealth Career and Independent Living Center.

For now, Bill’s Pastry Shop has four workers with disabilities who come in the morning and another four or so who come in the afternoon.

“We have room for eight more individuals now,” Reichard said. “Our goal is 16 this year. As we expand, we will employ others.” Someday that might mean a Bill’s annex bakery in another location.

They’d like to sell baked goods to restaurants and other businesses as well as individuals.

Make no mistake about the business — it is a business committed to producing a delicious and marketable product — cookies, pies, rolls, cakes, breads, and crème puffs.

“Everything is made from scratch,” Reichard said.

The workers with disabilities have job coaches who make sure the tasks they perform are suitable to their abilities, and don’t put them at risk.

“There are some areas, like the ovens or the fryer, that we will not let our clients touch, because it is just too dangerous for them,” Reichard said.

Pearline Thomas, for instance, makes cookies but doesn’t put them in or out of the oven. Stuart Thomas, her husband, is working on washing dishes. And on this morning, Beverley Doss prepares the boxes for pastry and Matt Dungan is the doughnut glazer. And of course, there’s Mollie Price, who loves to clean but can do other duties as well. Pay is minimum wage. Because most are on Medicaid, they can only work about 20 hours a week without losing benefits, Reichard said.

“Our mission is to be able to work with these individuals to give them a place in the community to feel successful,” she said. “They’re doing real work.”

Reichard’s adult children are mainstays in the pastry shop. Daughter Kimberly and her husband, Patrick Emerson, Dan III and his wife, Kelly, and Reichard’s nephew, Warren Cox, are all vested in the business’ success.

Reichard said she approached Mrs. Wells with the idea of having the pastry shop be the basis of employment for people with disabilities and special needs.

She liked the idea.

“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” Gertrude Wells said.

Another businesswoman made an unsuccessful attempt after Bill Wells passed away in 2007. Mrs. Wells didn’t want to close the bakery when it didn’t work.

“I figured I’d try it this way.”

Disabled people have a tough time finding work, said Reichard, who founded Commonwealth Supportive Services in 2001, which works with Medicaid waivers programs that include developmental disabilities, elderly and consumer directed, and mental retardation.

Reichard’s grasp of their struggle comes in part from her own family and her sister Beverley’s difficult time as they grew up in Madison Heights.

“I saw how my mother struggled over the years — trying to find services and things to help her advance in life.”

Reichard is an interpreter for the deaf in addition to having training in restaurant management. She works closely with College for Living Plus at Central Virginia Community College.

Her interest in becoming a business-oriented problem solver for people with disabilities intensified “after seeing that over the years, and working other places, seeing how individuals were treated.”

It is frustrating for employers as well as for the employees, she said. They often were not able to understand or handle the disabled people they had hired.

She had been working for a company in Virginia Beach, helping disabled people find work. “My husband said, ‘you know, you could do this.’”

“Financially it’s a struggle, but it’s working. Of course, I believe the Lord has got his hands on it.”

When she saw that Bill’s Pastry Shop was for sale, she approached his widow, Gertrude Wells, and asked if she could also purchase the name — and the recipes.

Now the worn, smudged, handwritten, loose-leaf notebooks are being read and used again. Recipes include goodies like hermit cake, sweet potato pie, French apple pie and brown sugar pie.

And of course there’s the ever-popular Cookie Boy Cookie.

The employees work hard, even though their disabilities can range from traumatic brain injury to autism to physical and intellectual disability.

“I really wanted a place where individuals could come, feel safe, and do a good day’s work, make a pay check,” she said.

Bill’s Pastry Shop began in the 1950s when Bill would drive around with a car full of pastries and ring a handbell.

That handbell and other items are now in a museum-style glass case as customers enter the shop. Someday, the collection of recipes may be on display as well.

In the back, where the sweet work is done, is the enormous gas-fired oven. A second oven, oil burning, is to be converted to gas. Newly purchased used display cases are being spruced up. And there’s the No. 1 item on the list of needs-to-be-done — a new roof.

Much of the well-used equipment, such as the roll cutter, is in working order. That includes the well-used table where Bill worked, complete to the worn spot where for years he rolled, cut, and prepared his products.

Gertrude Wells said she’s happy with the changes Reichard is making.

“She’s doing good.”