Bakery offers neurodiverse community members opportunity to take pride in their abilities
By Lisa DeAngelis, Thursday, July 10, 2025
It’s a Living with Lisa, Bucks County Herald
Like every other parent, after I’m dead, I hope my three children will continue to have happy lives and happy homes and happy work and a sense of belonging. It’s something I can’t help but think about more and more as I get older.
My children are typical in just about every way. And I can’t imagine the worry that parents of neurodivergent children must go through contemplating their children’s lives once they are no longer here to watch over them.
This is one of the considerations that led Paula Fasciano to open Bake Ability, located in the Buckingham Green Shopping center right next to the post office on York Road. Bake Ability is a savory and sweet specialties shop where baked goods are created by individuals with different abilities who are mentored by professionals.
Fasciano grew up in Warminster. She and husband, Anthony, have been married 31 years and have two sons, Matthew, 28, and Benjamin, 22, “who live with Fragile X Syndrome and who inspired the creation of Bake Ability.” Both men work at the shop.
She purchased the business from a bakery that closed during COVID, in December 2020. “I have a team of parents that help me navigate the day to day, along with our new store manager, Savannah Raphial, and our wonderful volunteers and employees. It literally takes a village at Bake Ability.” The business was able to hire a manager through the generosity of a grant from the Bucks County Office of Developmental Programs.
In addition to being a local business owner, Paula Fasciano has been a property and casualty insurance broker for Edgewood Partners Insurance Center since 1991.
I got to meet Paula, Benjamin, Savannah and Julia Anne Shirey, a dedicated baker and cashier, one recent Sunday when I visited. My personal favorites are their chocolate croissants, cheddar cheese scones, gluten-free peanut butter cookies for my friend who’s allergic to wheat, and the party trays of delectable bite-size sweets, perfect for large or small gatherings.
On my way out, I noticed bracelets for sale and Julia Anne Shirey came out from behind the counter to tell me about her side gig designing and making jewelry that can be purchased on her website CreativeJewelryByJules.com. Shirey learned about “Becoming an Entrepreneur” through an evening social group sponsored by The Next Step Programs (TNS). Shirey shares her jewelry sale proceeds with the organization.
Frankly, I’m nonplussed when Fasciano tells me about “the staggering 85% unemployment rate among the developmentally disabled adult population and the lack of meaningful employment for the community.” She believes “this population has been ‘overtherapied’ to death.”
She points out that many function at a high level and want to live and work in the community, and not in institutions, however well-meaning they are. They want what all young adults want: to live as independently as possible, to have work they can take pride in, and to reside in a congenial community. Parents of these young adults want to know their children will have comfortable living accommodations and employment, after they are no longer around to help them.
This is where The Next Step Programs, a community partner of Bake Ability, has come in to address this very human wish. TNS is a marketplace and housing initiative that believes “Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities deserve more than inclusion — they deserve empowerment, independence, and the opportunity to thrive.”
To kick off its 10th year, TNS initiated the Marketplace, in Doylestown, a proposed community that will include affordable housing, small business spaces, job training programs and community engagement where people of all abilities will come together to shop and celebrate diversity and inclusion. TNS has been raising funds to purchase property to bring the project to fruition.
Fasciano wants most of all “To make people understand how important and what a joy it is to have a neurodiverse workforce and the benefit they bring to the community. We now have gluten-free items and healthy choices. We can cater your events for desserts, and supply items for sale in theaters and at sporting events, etc.”
Fasciano is always looking for “additional community partners to work with us and to replicate what we have here at Bake Ability.”
Read original article here.
