Greyston brownies can be found in ice cream purveyor Ben & Jerry’s products.
“Ben & Jerry’s is now owned by another company, Unilever, so we send half our product to Vermont and the other half to Holland. So we are now an exporter,” says Steven Brown, president and CEO of Greyston Foundation.
The $8 million for-profit company trains and employs more than 50 workers who face barriers to employment.
Business can be a “force of social change,” says Glassman, a onetime aeronautical engineer. “Many nonprofits felt that making money was wrong. I couldn’t believe it. You can combine profit and nonprofit” to build a sustainable model.
In addition to work opportunities through Greyston Bakery, there are after-school programs, 200 units of affordable housing and an underlying mission to help those served forge their own “path.”
It all goes back to this Glassman mantra, “If people are sick, the society is sick.”
In his own words
“It’s simple. I did this because of people. There were people that were homeless. There were people out of work, people who were sick. My understanding is that there is nobody outside of yourself. Meaning, I was sick, I was HIV, I was homeless, and when you know that that’s the case, you have to take care. It’s very simple. People get better: It’s wonderful. And some people don’t: They die. But it’s the people. It’s nothing other than that.”
– Bernie Glassman, founder, Zen Peacemakers, Greyston Foundation, Yonkers
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