The Dog Tag Bakery, a non-profit organization that will provide education and employment opportunities for disabled veterans and their spouses, will open in June after delays in construction pushed back the original goal of opening in February.
The store, located in Georgetown at 3210 Grace St., will implement the vision of founder Fr. Richard Curry, S.J. to support disabled veterans through skill training and assistance for civilian life.
“With Georgetown’s assistance, we can realize our goal of empowering these extraordinary men and women as they transition back to civilian life,” Curry wrote in an email to the Voice.
As a result of the delays, construction of the bakery has just started, but according to Curry, management will use the extra time to develop more infrastructure for veterans.
According to Director of Development and Fundraising Adam Mortillaro (COL ‘12), the bakery will run a six-month training program alongside the School of Continuing Studies to train disabled veterans in entrepreneurship, communications, and leadership development and will additionally provide personal counseling and support. The program will initially accept ten trainees and may expand in the future.
The bakery is recruiting veterans through veteran service organizations throughout the D.C. area, including the Walter Reed Military Medical Center, and may also hire Georgetown students and local non-veterans.
“We’d like to have as many veterans as possible in the bakery but depending on the workflow, we might not be able to staff in entirely veterans … [so] we’d turn to the neighborhood and, of course, to Georgetown students,” Mortillaro said. “A lot of these guys are coming back from overseas and they’re no older than you or I are. To have that kind of interaction with [Georgetown] students with vastly different life experiences, we think it would be an incredible asset.”
Mortillaro hopes the Dog Tag Bakery will eventually spread beyond D.C. to “serve an ever-widening pool of veterans and their families.”
