Eats & Beats: The Women’s Bean Project

For the past 35 years, the Women’s Bean Project has been empowering women by giving them skills in the job field to build upon. The project’s history goes back to 1989 when founder Jossy Eyre was volunteering at a Denver shelter and wanted to take support a step further by helping women make lasting changes in their lives. She started by investing $500. From there, she bought beans to make ten-bean soup and employed 2 women. Today Women’s Bean Project estimates that they’ve served a couple of thousand women in our community and now offer a wide variety of baking mixes, ready-to-eat items like instant beans and rice cups, snacks, and of course bean soup.

On Eats & Beats, The Morning Set’s Abi Clark and Steve Chavis spoke with Tamra Ryan, the CEO of The Women’s Bean Project. When asked about this transformation within the women she said “Over a period of 6-9 months… they literally blossom. I’d like to think that they’re becoming the women that they are meant to be and they’re overcoming all those things that they were told before they came. Every woman who comes to us has been told all the things she cannot do. Finally, when she comes here, we focus on her future rather than her past and we talk about the things that she might do, the things that she dreams of doing… Coming to an environment that’s about that, that is about who you could become and how you might become that person, I think is uplifting for anyone and I get to witness this 1st hand.”

Check out our full conversation below!

Applications for the program, volunteer opportunities, and their line of products can be found at Women’s Bean Project

Catch Eats & Beats every Wednesday at 8:30 a.m. MT on KUVO. Tune in to The Morning Set on weekdays from 7 – 10 a.m. by going to KUVO JAZZ 89.3FM or via the stream or the KUVO App.

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