Transcript: Do Good Donuts

[Meridian logo]

[Soft instrumental music]

[Fade in as a woman walks into a dimly light commercial kitchen]

Hi, my name is Melanie Cote, I live in Toronto and I am the founder of Do Good Donuts.

[Melanie, wearing an apron and baseball hat, starts turning on lights and preparing the kitchen space]

Do Good Donuts is a social enterprise that hires and trains young adults with intellectual developmental disabilities and neurodiversity for paid, on-the-job training in food service. 

[Melanie is talking while wearing a Do Good Donuts T shirt in her commercial kitchen]

When my daughter was five months old, we found out that she was born with a rare genetic syndrome called Williams Syndrome. 

[Melanie makes doughnuts, moving dough from trays to the fryer. She ties the back of a Do Good Donuts apron for a young adult wearing a Do Good Donuts baseball hat.]

Do Good was started because I became really interested in understanding what her life would look like. 

[Melanie and a diverse group of young adults work together in the kitchen, preparing doughnuts. They are wearing a mix of Do Good Donuts T shirts, baseball hats, and aprons.]

I'm trying to imagine the life for my daughter in the future, and I'm spending time with all of these young adults and they come into our program and they have a set idea of what they're capable of. And then they do so much more. They exceed their own expectations time and time again. 

[Do Good Donuts selling their baked goods from a tent at a farmer’s market]

On March 15th, 2021, we learned we were accepted into our first farmers market, and we had a plan on a page for a whole café and bakery, but we needed to be a nimble pilot program, donut shop in a park in nine weeks. 

[A sign in front of the Do Good Donuts market stand reads: We’re a non-profit social enterprise hiring and training young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.]

On the 15th of May, nine weeks later, we set up our tent. 

[Melanie carries large containers full of baked goods out of a van and over to the Do Good Donuts stand]

We brought our donuts that we made from the commercial kitchen that we had been working in, and we brought the cookies from the other commercial kitchen we were working in. We were in all kinds of locations trying to make it work, and we sold out in 20 minutes.

[Sign reads: Sold out.]

[Back in the kitchen, Melanie and young adults make doughnuts.]

When we were just starting out at the farmer's market, we were in a race to the finish line to be prepared, and we had to get all of our ducks in a row. And one of them was getting a bank account.

And it's really hard to get a bank account for a corporation when you don't have any stuff, you don't have a thing.

And I checked every bank out there, I asked everybody the questions, I checked their rates and everything else.

And the best choice, and the people who were first to be excited about having us as a client, were Meridian.

[Two women, both wearing Do Good Donuts shirts, sit on a couch talking and looking over papers and files.]

At the end of 2022, when we finished for the season, I was really starting to wonder if we should continue, which seems like a funny thing to think because the business was popular. Everything is going really well. But the sheer tenacity it takes to try to grow without the ability to generate enough revenue to be able to make those leaps, it seemed like an unsolvable problem.

[At the Do Good Donuts market stand, employees sell doughnuts and baked good and chat with customers.]

At around that time, I got an email from Meridian who said that we had been nominated in the Small Business Big Impact contest, which they go out to the public and ask the public to nominate businesses in their communities that are having a big social impact.

And then we found out that we made the top ten for the contest and it was so exciting, and we got invited to apply for a grant which hadn't happened at all.

So, all of a sudden, all of the things that I loved most and that I cared about most for the business were being reflected back to me in information that the community felt the same way about what we were doing.

[In the Do Good Donuts kitchen, employees of all ages smile, chat, and prepare doughnuts.]

And when we found out that we won the small business contest. 

[Melanie, speaking with emotion in her voice.]

[In the Do Good Donuts kitchen, employees decorate donuts, many smile at the camera.]

First of all, that was thrilling. And secondly, the prize money was just enough for us to be able to start looking for space to rent, create our own kitchen. Finally.

When I say it out loud, it does sound like a lot, I agree. It sounds like a lot, but for me, it's just my life's work.

It's just what I was meant to do.

[Meridian logo]