Customers can buy a slice of pie for $5 and allow a stranger in need to use it later when they stop at the shop.

"It's been pretty crazy a couple of people came up straight to the door… ‘I heard about pie in the sky and I want to help,'" Coleman said.

The shop opened in the Macalester-Groveland neighborhood in St. Paul last summer.

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"We want to support this business but also support people in need," said Jim McKenzie, a frequent customer.

McKenzie, 80, a retiree in the neighborhood, has been telling others on the block about the program.

"I like being able to do something, we're all so frustrated with the new reality that has come over us," McKenzie said.

A bakery brings comfort, Coleman said. Now more than ever the community needs that feeling of support.