Beautiful Day (BD) is an employment-focused social enterprise with a mission to connect refugees with the Rhode Island community through business initiatives, job training, and community education. Our primary focus is serving newly resettled adults and youth who face the most challenging employment barriers, including limited English language, minimal first-language literacy, a lack of transferable skills, and no experience navigating the American job market.
To address these challenges, we provide paid, hands-on training in our commercial kitchen, at farmers markets, and through internships at local businesses partners. We supplement on-the-job training with classroom based workshops to ensure that our participants graduate with a network of support and the critical skills to confidently enter the workforce.
We offer four programs that each serve a different demographic: Granola production and packaging for adults with multiple barriers, job readiness training and internship opportunities for youth ages 15-18, market and customer service training for highly capable adults, as well as a catering/business entrepreneurship exploration for Afghan Women.
As a service to organizations across the country who are providing job-training to refugees with similar barriers, we are starting to make available some of our curriculum (see Granola Production Training and Youth Internships).
In this 3-4 month program, adult refugees from around the world are employed in the BD kitchen to prepare and package specialty food products. Participants receive paid, hands-on training along with a structured education component to build skills and confidence, while gaining professional experience in a commercial kitchen.
For refugees ages 15-18 we offer a paid, six- month (October-June) job training to help young people prepare for their first summer job, contribute to their family incomes, and begin planning for their future careers. The program combines learning and practice through weekly classroom seminars and on-the-job internships. Youth receive support from mentors in the BD kitchen, at farmers markets, or with partners in the business community.
In 2023, BD launched a pilot food entrepreneurship program for Afghan women as part of Rhode Island’s Afghan Social Capital Initiative. Each week a group of Afghan women meet in the BD kitchen to cook together. Within this supportive environment, participants experiment with recipe and menu development, learn business and marketing essentials, and gain job-readiness skills. Already this has led to the successful beginning of an Afghan Women’s catering business.
This immersive six-month training program supports refugee adults as they gain front-of-house skills essential for careers in hospitality and retail. As part of a supportive team, participants learn to organize inventory, converse with customers, and process product sales as vendors at various farmers markets. Participants also get intensive opportunities to practice English and interact with members of the local community.
Beautiful Day is truly a community effort. Our success and everything we accomplish comes from the strong collaboration between our program participants, our staff, fellow refugee service organizations, local business partners, our dedicated volunteers, enthusiastic customers, and our generous donors. It's our shared commitment to creating a good life for everyone in Rhode Island that enables us to provide supportive job training, which is essential for a strong and inclusive economy and society. And, we make delicious products!
We believe our model can be replicated elsewhere and are happy to share information about our programs. We deeply appreciate everyone's significant contributions and ongoing support – together, we make it a Beautiful Day.
Maliss Coletta, Program Director
