The Women’s Bean is a nonprofit organization that utilizes social enterprise to help offer women stepping stones to becoming self-sufficient.
According to their vision on the website, “(We) believe that all women have the power to transform their lives through employment. So we hire women who are chronically unemployed and we teach them to work by making nourishing products.”
When What Now Denver spoke to CEO Tamra Ryan on Friday, she said, “We employ the women for seven months and help them build the skills to get and keep a job. We help them overcome the barriers that prevent them from getting employment. Sometimes it’s recovery, sometimes it’s getting back into society after incarceration. Every women has a different story and different variety of challenges. We’re helping them overcome those challenges to move back into mainstream society. We provide the necessary experience by having them work in our food manufacturing business. Every time a woman becomes a good employee, she goes off to become someone else’s good employee.”
After operating at 3201 Curtis Street, the team is getting ready to move into a space twice as big over at 1300 W Alameda Avenue.
“We’re excited about this building,” says Ryan. “It’s been vacant since 2016, so the opportunity to reactivate that location and become part of that part of Denver is exciting.”
The new warehouse will contain just over 20,000 square feet of space with a 1,300 square foot mezzanine level.
“Even having that building occupied again and doing good for the community is good for all of Denver, but especially that neighborhood,” Ryan adds. “We’re moving into a neighborhood we really hope we can impact simply by occupying the building.”
The new location offers further opportunity to grow and give the company more availability to hire women. While they await final approval on the building permits filed with the City of Denver, they’re hoping for a March 2022 move-in.
