Roll models

Summer may have been cancelled, but Hong Kong radio personality Sadie Kaye is on a roll and making a lot of dough! Thanks to the generosity and enthusiasm of a small team of roll models, she’s been able to donate ALL THIS to Hong Kong charity Breadline!

Sadie writes, “The food waste charity, founded by Daisy Tam Diers, does a cracking job of feeding the homeless and other vulnerable groups living on the streets or in shelters. The charity usually relies on food waste donations from cafes and restaurants, but with most operating restricted hours at low capacity, Breadline and other food waste charities have been unable to keep up with demand at a time it has never been higher. So after reading an article in the Hong Kong Free Press, I rallied a few of my neighbours together to see if we could feasibly bake our own to help the charity continue its work during the pandemic. Last week we donated to a refuge shelter for abused domestic helpers awaiting trial. The week before we donated to a shelter for Kenyan migrant workers and refugees after learning bread is part of their essential diet.

“Thanks to the amazing team effort of Ying, Moira, Chriz, Raquel, Mercy, Michelle, Emma and Amy, we have made this a weekly initiative over the past couple of months. If you’re based in Sai Kung/Clearwater Bay/Tseung Kwan O and would like to join our Baker’s Dirty Half Dozen, get in touch! We’re all novices so don’t let a trivial thing like experience put you off. My first loaf came out of the oven not just burnt, but on fire! It still tasted pretty good though, once I’d given it a good hose down with the fire extinguisher.

We were also able to donate at least 12 shop bought loaves to Feeding Hong Kong, who had received an anonymous tip off about my baking and decided their insurance policy didn’t cover it.”

Sadie is now exploring the possibility of setting up an online bakery, Home Kong Bakery, where you can order home made breads, pastries, muffins and other yummy treats online. Sadie writes, “We can’t promise it’ll be the best you’ve ever tasted, but we can promise every cent we make will be donated to homeless charities. We’re also collaborating with local artists through Mental Ideas to create sustainable bread boxes out of recycled waste with doodled designs and messages of solidarity to our homeless friends.”

So now social distancing restrictions are being relaxed, will the community project continue?

Sadie responds, “Absofrickinlutely! Home Kong Bakery is only just rolling up its sleeves! The pandemic has been a real wake up call exposing the scale of homelessness and poverty not just in Hong Kong, but globally. What always strikes me most about Hong Kong is not the divisions that exist here, which it’s easy to dwell on and become disheartened by, but the solidarity. Bighearted Hongkongers have a world-beating capacity to band together and create change. Sometimes that change can be big and bold, even if it doesn’t happen in the timeframe envisaged or in the desired way. That’s not to say it won’t happen one day, just not today. Sometimes it’s as small and insignificant as baking a bunch of bread rolls or adding an extra loaf to your weekly shopping list and then donating it.”

To join Sadie’s Home Kong Bakery community enterprise, email Sadie@mentalideas.org.