Founded in 1982, the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, NY has long been one of the country's most successful examples of inner-city social entrepreneurship. The Bakery accepts new employees - many of them with problematic or non-existent labor histories - on a first-come, first-served basis and introduces them into the company using a unique apprenticeship program. Over the past decade the Bakery has evolved from a small, unprofitable operation into one of the largest and most successful businesses in downtown Yonkers.

The Greyston Bakery is the sole supplier of brownie chips for Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc., a role that now requires the production of over 2.5 million pounds of brownie chips each year.

In early 2002 Greyston broke ground on a new, 23,000 sf facility on the banks of the Hudson River, two blocks from the old factory. The new building is a modern, environmentally sensitive, public and employee-friendly building, designed by renowned architect and artist Maya Lin (designer of the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington D.C.).

The new facility was built on the site of a former coal gasification plant and the construction project included a substantial environmental remediation. The remediation was conducted through a Voluntary Clean-up Agreement between Greyston and the State of New York Department of Environmental Conservation. The corporation liable for the contamination of the site during the early 1900s paid for most of the clean-up costs.

The nearly $10 million project was financed by a number of public and private entities. KeyBank National Association provided a letter of credit to enhance the project's variable-rate, tax-exempt bonds and made a substantial equity investment in the project. The Nonprofit Finance Fund made a critical bridge loan. The building's new baking equipment was paid for by US HUD Section 108 Loan and HUD also made a $.5 million Economic Development Initiative Grant to the project. The City of Yonkers was a critical partner throughout the project, facilitated regulatory process, negotiated a critical PILOT agreement, administered the HUD agreements, provided an additional loan and critical guarantees, and induced the project with tax-exempt bonds.

The Greyston Bakery building was completed in November of 2003 and won an American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA/COTE) award as a Top Ten Green Project for 2004.