Ex-Con’s Son Helps Former Prisoners Integrate into New Life as Bakers

• After Matt Fountain witnessed his stepfather struggle to reintegrate into society after imprisonment, he decided to help other ex-cons.
• He established Freedom Bakery, which pairs ex-cons with qualified bakers so they can work through getting a recognized qualification.
• Matt shared that he simply wants to help those whose odds have been stacked against them from the beginning.

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Matt Fountain has seen his ex-con stepfather struggle for a new life after imprisonment. So he established a bakery focused on teaching other ex-cons the skills it takes to be good bakers. This charitable bakery has since provided all kinds of bread to some of Scotland’s fanciest restaurants, such as Ubiquitous Chip.

Matt, a Cambridge graduate, had just returned to Glasgow with a chance of getting his PhD at Oxford.

But he felt out of place and “pretty worn out,” and even felt like he was “living a bit of a fake life” due to his background. He wondered if graduating from both Cambridge and Oxford would further his career, but he still wanted to do something useful.

So instead of furthering his education, he invested his time and energy into helping people, including ex-convicts, to start a new life.

His first charitable idea was “to raise money for the charity Shelter by cycling around the UK.”

He soon thought about starting Freedom Bakery after he got permission to use a small kitchen in HMP Low Moss, Glasgow, back in 2014.

To help prisoners work through a recognized qualification for the baking industry, Matt paired them with qualified bakers. These bakers, along with the other employees, were trained in self-defense since they were working with prisoners in a notorious jail.

Matt admitted, “It’s a mixture of long-term and short-term sentences including drug-related offenses, fraud, and I’m afraid to say manslaughter and murder.”

The bakery now has 16 employees, a third of whom are ex-cons.

Matt has made it their mission to produce bread that’s so good that “it would leave a lasting impression on the person eating it, so they would understand where it came from and maybe think more positively about who made that bread.”

Prisons and ex-convicts may have a bad reputation, but Matt believes that prisons are “a microcosm of humanity with both good and evil.”

He added, “For some, the odds have been stacked against them from the beginning, so they never had a chance.” He simply wants to support those individuals who want to help themselves and have a “healthy and rewarding” life.

Despite the restrictions in place, the bakery saw its sales increase by 12 percent last year. They plan to move to larger premises by October.

Source: Good News Network