The student news site of Clayton High School.

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The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

The student news site of Clayton High School.

The Globe

Sara’s Bread

Sara Bailey is a social and happy teenager who will put a smile on your face when you are around here. Her way of living is simply contagious to those around her. She will be graduating from Ladue Horton Watkins High School this month. She is the eighth of ten children. Sara skis, plays piano, throws beautiful pots on the pottery wheel and swam for LHWHS. Sara also has Down syndrome.

Despite a lifestyle that is already very active and even extraordinary, she is also a teenage entrepreneur and recently started her own baking business.

The Beginning

The beginning of Sara’s baking career started during this past winter break. Sara’s sister, Lara Buckwalter, brought a Bosch baking machine back home with her to show to her mom, Annagreth Bailey.

“We always have fun doing things together, and my mom had the idea that this is something that Sara could do,” Buckwalter said.

Although Sara admits it was “messy” the first time she made bread, she was ready for more.

Sara then got her own Bosch baking machine for Christmas, and has been in the kitchen making bread basically every day since.

After Lara taught Sara how to make bread once, Lara videotaped every step so Sara could look at the video and see what she needs to do.

Although Sara has surprised her mother on many occasions in her ability to accomplish a feat or task that is difficult, or even seemingly insurmountable, Bailey, her mother, was again reminded of Sara’s capacity to learn.

“This experience teaches me how teachable she really is, how she can learn if I take the time to break down something into little steps and then let her repeat it,” Bailey said. “The repetition teaches her and then she gets faster and more productive.”

Making Bread

Sara makes five to ten loaves of bread for each batch almost every day. Her bread is sold in a clear plastic bag entitled, ‘Sara’s Bread,’ at Global Foods Market in Kirkwood, and she also gets special orders throughout the week. It is sold for $2.99 per loaf and Sara is considering expanding her business to eventually making other types of bread and even cupcakes.

“At first, she has to get everything ready,” Bailey said. “She likes it to be in order. She gets all of the ingredients and lines then up on the counter and takes out the bread machine. If there is not enough wheat that has already been ground, she grinds wheat. That takes longer, but if the wheat is all ready to go, with only putting the ingredients into the bowl, it doesn’t take her longer than maybe ten minutes to make the dough.

The ball of dough is then divided into five pieces and she then weighs each of the pieces so each is exactly one pound ten ounces. She folds the pieces and rolls the pieces out again to make sure there are no air bubbles left in the dough.

The bread has a fluffy consistency and is cooked to ensure the crust does not become too hard.

“It was Lara’s recipe that she had gotten from a friend,” Bailey said. “It is a healthy recipe with flax seed, whole wheat and honey, so it is tasty as well as healthy.”

Bailey has seen Sara become more self-confident as Sara now recognizes that her skill of making bread allows to have some financial independence.

“She gets very excited when people want to buy her bread, and to get the money so she can put in a folder—it is all now a process so she can see that when she makes something, she gets paid for it,” Bailey said.

Sara has been saving her earnings for the last couple months.

“I want to buy a laptop so I can iChat with my siblings, facebook and also for my business because we are thinking of making a website in the future,” Sara said.

Working at St. Louis Smoothie

Although Sara started her bread making business in January, she has in fact been working for the last two years at St. Louis Smoothie. To Bailey’s great surprise, the person at the counter, Randy, asked if she was interested in coming and helping there.

“I was blown away that someone would offer that to her,” Bailey said. “I wouldn’t have to ask or go through an agency to find established community places all ready. Off course, I said that would be awesome. She started out an hour a week and Randy showed her the ropes.”

In the last couple months, Sara has begun to work at St. Louis Smoothie with a job coach, Roberta Schoenfeldt, to help her develop a greater sense of appropriate business behavior.

“Before I would give her money to buy a smoothie, or Randy would give her a smoothie on the house,” Bailey said. “Roberta said that we couldn’t do that anymore. She goes there as an employee, a worker, as a volunteer. She can’t be costumer or expecting a smoothie at the same time. She has to learn the lines of business and being a volunteer.”

Schoenfeldt trusts that with many “exceptional skills” Sara has, she can help Sara learn everything she needs to know.

“I put no caps on her learning,” Schoenfeldt said.

Job Opportunities for People with Special Needs

Bailey is grateful that St. Louis Smoothie has been so accommodating for Sara, but only wishes that other individuals with special needs had similar opportunities to gain skills.

“I think it is a great idea to get it out there that these people need employment, but there is no way they can learn how unless it is on the job,” Bailey said.

Most people in St. Louis with special needs are matched up through a non-profit, St. Louis Arc, which both finds jobs for them and trains them. Special School District also provides similar services, but even so, job sites can be limiting due to a lack of faith and trust in people with special needs and that these businesses generally do not offering anything freely.

Sara has been assigned to a nursing home in Webster Groves where she takes both classes and works, learning skills such a cleaning a bathroom, or walking a dog for a resident.

The dream job for Sara is working in a childcare center, but opportunities for her in that setting are essentially non existent although Bailey believes she works well with her nieces and nephews.

In Wisconsin, there is distinctive bakery and café called Taste of Home—Kneaded Life Skills. They employ people with mental challenges as culinary interns.

“That is exactly what I am looking for, places in the community that are willing to train people with disabilities,” Bailey said.

The culinary interns come from a Shepherd’s College, a three-year college that focuses on teaching students a trade such as culinary arts, or landscaping. Internships lasts for two years, where they can earn money and a certificate.

Bailey wishes such internships as step towards “independence, at least with assisted living.”

Saint Louis University is considering opening up a similar program in 2013, or 2014, for students at a fourth to sixth grade academic level, where these students can take life skills classes and live on campus. These students would live on the same floor as college students going into special education, but Bailey is still skeptical.

“When you pay $50,000 a year in tuition,” Bailey said. “Can they then be employed so then can pay those loans back? Are you then going to be really employed more if they obtain a certificate especially in the economy we have now? Would people choose out a pool of applicants a person with special needs first? There are all questions I have before I spend that money.”

Schoenfeldt, Sara’s job coach, believes strongly that people with disabilities can be functional and contribute to their community.

“We need more employers to open their doors and provide workplaces for their skills to be developed,” Schoenfeldt said. “They will enhance anyone’s workplace.”

Looking to the Future

Although Sara is an involved and active student at Ladue Horton Watkins High School, she is excited about the next step.

“After graduation, I am excited to go on with life, and about having more independence,” Sara said.

Even so, the adult lives of people with special needs are often uncharted and uncertain after they finish their schooling.

“She is nervous because all of her siblings went to college after high school and there is no plan for her to go to college, Bailey said. “I have to tell her that she needs to learn other skills first before she goes to college. You have to be independent before you leave home.”

Sara is a reminder that people with special needs can greatly exceed societal expectations, if people will only forgo assumptions and judgments.

“I have learned to never underestimate ourselves and our abilities, but also never to underestimate other people in their lives either,” Buckwalter said. “Sara looks at life in a simple lens; it is refreshing and teaches me a lot about myself. We think that we are teaching them, but they are the ones that really are teaching us.”

Ultimately, people who only see boundaries will inhibit themselves and others. The sky is the limit for all individuals–regardless of the constraints of society’s labels and notions.

“I catch myself sometimes thinking that she can’t do something, but I then have to tell myself, of course she can do that,” Bailey said. “As a mother, I have to work on that, I can only imagine how others limit her after simply looking at her . . . I admit, it is hard work, it is much easier to say ‘you poor little thing,’ and let them sit back, and please them at every corner. It takes a lot of effort and dedication to help them achieve their potential.”

For more information: ‘Sara Making Bread’ on youtube.com, Sara’s Bread can be found at Global Foods Market

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Sara’s Bread