ADAMÂ’s new head baker, Alex Tamale, thought he had joined just another bakery. Then came his first Friday distribution. “When we arrived in the community and I saw so many children desperately waiting for something to eat, I was overwhelmed and cried,” he says. “It was a moment that changed me.”
The ADAMÂ bakery sits near the Oruchinga Settlement Camp in southwest Uganda, home to more than 9,000 refugees from East Africa. The bakery gives refugees, especially women, the skills to earn a livelihood. And it feeds the camp’s most vulnerable residents, the children. “Our long-term vision is to provide one meal a day to all five thousand children in the camp,” says Ayelet Berman-Cohen, ADAMÂ’s founder.
Our annual fundraiser for ADAMÂ, now in its fifth year, has a single goal: $2,500 for a second mixer the bakers can use for both breads and cakes. Last year, we raised money for electric ovens. “Macrina’s gifts to us completely changed the bakery,” Ayelet says. “From baking in one fire oven to now baking with two electric ovens. Incredible generosity. We are so grateful.”
The ovens set off a year of growth. An experienced local baker now works alongside the refugee bakers, sharpening their skills and raising their output. A new sales manager and a small delivery van carry ADAMÂ breads, under the bakery’s own label, into the surrounding communities, where return customers wait for the daily delivery. Every step toward a self-sustaining bakery frees more energy for the giving programs inside the camp.
Each Friday, the team distributes fresh rolls and nutritious porridge, made in the ADAMÂ kitchen, to more than six hundred children. The Umoja drummers, refugees from Burundi, ride along and turn each stop into a celebration. And ADAMÂ Aid, launched last year after international aid organizations left Oruchinga, keeps growing. Every month it delivers rations of beans and corn flour, milled on-site, to seventy of the camp’s most vulnerable families, up from fifty at its launch.
“It is easy to look at a bag of flour or a sack of beans as just food,” says Angella Kushemererwa of the ADAMÂ leadership team. “But to a family who has absolutely nothing, it is so much more. It is a lifeline.”
“We are honored to support the ADAMÂ bakery and the refugees they serve again this year,” says Scott France, president and co-owner of Macrina Bakery. “Any contribution, however small, makes a profound impact. Please join us in extending our bakery community to our friends in Uganda.”
From August 10–16, every large Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookie helps feed the children of Oruchinga. You can also donate directly to ADAMÂ here.