Support Saint John’s Businesses

When you support our Saint John’s Businesses, you are supporting our mission to unleash the potential of women and children in crisis.

Saint John’s Businesses

100% of the proceeds from our social enterprises directly support formerly homeless women at Saint John’s working to build self-sustaining lives for themselves and their children.

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Plates Café and Catering

Plates Café and Catering is a great place to grab a delicious, healthy, prompt and affordable lunch, all while doing good at the same time. Customers are given a true dining experience with Plates. From big catering events like Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom’s swearing-in reception for 400, to intimate retirement parties, our Catering food and service has become the talk of the town! Plates Café is open for catering on-site and offsite. We no longer offer lunch service. For catering inquiries, please email info@eatatplates.com.

The first Thursday of every month, Saint John’s and Plates Café host a Guest Chef Dinner featuring a celebrated local chef or restaurant and an outstanding winery to expose the foodie community to great food and wine and the great work being done at Saint John’s.

Everyone who eats at Plates becomes a community builder by helping the women training at Plates learn skills to successfully re-enter the job market. When you dine with us or let us cater your next event, your funds directly help provide job training and supportive services to women in need.  So let us fill your appetite for delicious food and Real Change in our community.

“The food here is outstanding! And the fact that Plates is run by Saint John’s Program for Real Change means my lunch dollars work twice as hard. The team here is changing and learning food service skills to change their lives. I’m all for women empowering themselves to have better lives!”

Jessica Clark

Red Door Desserts

In 2020, the closing of our two restaurants and our catering business due to COVID-19 meant that we needed to redevelop our employment training. We quickly shifted to our business to combine our internal strengths with a practical and memorable product that helps share our stories.

With Red Door Desserts, women at Saint John’s continue their hands-on employment training and learn to not only bake beautiful and delicious cookies and desserts, but also learn order management, supply chain elements, packaging and shipping.

Indulge and empower with a monthly cookie subscription to our Red Door Desserts Club. For just $30/month, enjoy delicious desserts made from scratch, and with love, from women in the hands-on employment training program at Saint John’s. Don’t miss the reviews in Sacramento Magazine and Beyonish.

Employment Training at Saint John’s Businesses

When a woman and her children enter our comprehensive program, they are immediately encircled with structure — mental health therapy, educational programs, life skills training, childcare, and extensive hands-on job training at one of three successful Saint John’s businesses. 96% of our mothers are placed in unsubsidized employment upon completion of employment training!

Employment training occurs at one of our two successful social enterprises, Plates Café & Catering, Red Door Desserts. To graduate, women complete a minimum of 400 hands-on training hours, work through all of our employability and job-readiness classes, and maintain secure employment for 90 days.

Our proven and replicable model empowers women to overcome multiple barriers to employment and self-sustainability and to permanently escape the cycle of poverty and violence.