VALLEY VIEW, Ohio — The crew here at Sweetie Pie's bakery is hard at work prepping desserts for a wedding, but this isn't your average bake shop. It's part of a meaningful program.
"It's called 'Christine's Hope,' which is a holistic community and a little different way of approaching services for the cognitively delayed," Bessie Vrettos, COO of Inclusion Works, explains.
Christine's Hope provides services like gardening, crafting, and making dozens of sweets for brides like Veronica Zielinski. She's getting married on Saturday, and wanted to pick the right vendors.
"I think that weddings are a lot of investment time-wise, financially, and I wanted to feel good about where our investment was going," Veronica said. "And that's what led me to discovering Spectrum Catering, which is doing all of our dinner. They are a vocational training program based out of Lorain and they agreed to do our food.
"We found Inclusion Works here and Sweetie Pie's Bakery and wanted to use them for our dessert options. After that, I just kept finding different places that would be able to offer us some different things — party favors, decorations — and I thought it was wonderful because I was really excited about investing in such amazing organizations."
In all, Veronica and her fiancé, David Jenkins, who both work in the developmental disability field, hired six vendors who employ people with learning and cognitive challenges. It's a mission near and dear to Veronica's heart.
"My younger brother has multiple disabilities. He was born when I was 4, so he's been in my life as long as I can remember, and I've been in this world as long as I can remember," she told us. "I was at every therapy appointment with him and we went to camp together, and we were just very close growing up, and I ended up going into the disability field as a career.
"I'm a support administrator at the county board, and my fiancé is an independent provider. So, we are both workers in the field, both very passionate about this population, and wanted to incorporate it into our day because it's such a big part of our lives."
For Bessie, Veronica is shining a spotlight on the wonderful, dedicated workers at Sweetie's and other vendors.
"It touches my heart because that's the whole purpose of this, to take us out into the community and to bring the community into us, and she's helping us do that," Veronica said. "So, there's no stopping them. I mean, it is all within their capability and within their reach, as long as we're there to support them and show them that we have faith in them."
The list of vendors Veronica and David are using are listed below:
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