Sadie with some refugees
It’s been over a year since RTHK presenter and Home Kong Kitchen founder Sadie Kaye got on a roll and started making serious dough! What began as a small bunch of claustrophobic Sai Kung neighbours turning their kitchens into mini-Hiroshimas to assist food waste charities feed Hong Kong’s homeless during the 3rd wave of the pandemic has evolved into a bustling social enterprise creating, collecting and delivering much more than just bread!
HKK bakers Vivian and Khim
“To be honest I don’t have time to do any baking these days,” Kaye admits. “Which is probably a good thing as I’m not sure my home insurance policy was ever high enough to cover it. There are some weeks it feels like a full time job orchestrating deliveries, coordinating volunteers, and doing most of the heavy lifting myself. I look, feel, smell and swear like a refuse collector. But that’s a small price to pay for what the community has achieved.” Home Kong Kitchen now bakes, collects and delivers breads, bagels and muffins to people living on the streets, in unlicensed shelters and refuges most days. Kaye also collects supermarket loaves from people’s homes. Since Oct 2020, she’s donated bread and other gifts to homeless charity ImpactHK and migrant charity Bethune House every Thursday. “We also organize events for the elderly and refugees and deliver free breakfasts to anyone who needs it anywhere in Hong Kong. All you have to do is register.”
Breakfasts on us
But despite the snowballing success of the community enterprise, she has no plans to register Home Kong Kitchen as a charity. “There are so many fantastic charities and NGOs in Hong Kong doing incredible work and a lot of them are really struggling. I’d much rather quietly support their amazing work than make lots of noise and compete with them. While Home Kong Kitchen has its own identity, I love the freedom to collaborate with like minded individuals and non-profit organizations. That’s the best part of it. So many friendships with inspiring people outside my media bubble have been formed and cherished along the way.”
Breakfasts on us at Bethune House
In the past month Home Kong Kitchen has run three special events besides their regular bread runs: a Diwali Delivery of clothes, shoes and cooking utensils for refugees, a muffin run for the elderly and a wash bag project for the homeless distributed via ImpactHK. Other Hong Kong charities Home Kong Kitchen has supported over the past 14 months include Loved Flock, Breadline, Amigos HK, the Mission For Migrant Workers and Refugee Union. In June 2021 Home Kong Kitchen was awarded a Happy Homes Award by the Mission For Migrant Workers for promoting mutual understanding, respect, fair treatment and recognition of migrant domestic helpers in Hong Kong. In July Kaye received a certificate of recognition as top fundraiser for Bethune House Migrant Women’s Refuge in Jordan.
“Although baking, collecting and delivering fresh bread remains at the heart of what we do, 2021 has seen us create all kinds of hand crafted gifts for the homeless. Our cutest project yet saw us collect and donate items you would find in a wash bag to the homeless via ImpactHK. [This followed an online chat with Jeff Rottmeyer in which he mentioned that although Hong Kong provides great public showers, there are no amenities there like soap or shampoo.] The bags were designed and sewn using recycled cotton by our youngest volunteers: a bunch of inspiring 7-16 year olds spearheaded by my 15-year old aspiring costume designer niece Mia Shroff!” Kaye proudly reveals. The following weekend we did another Muffin Run for the elderly in Kwun Tong. “I rocked up at their homes with my puppy Mojo [HKK’s poodle mascot and sarcastically named ‘Wolf Warrior’] and joked that if they’d been vaxxed they received a complimentary poodle!”
Bags, bags, bags and mojo hobo Kaye
I ask her what else is coming up? “Last Christmas we created and distributed nearly 300 Christmas Gift Socks filled with tasty treats, practical necessities and little luxuries to the homeless via the unlicensed shelters and refuges we regularly donate to and ImpactHK. We are upping our game this year. The socks will be handcrafted by our youngest volunteers and we are already collecting stocking fillers.
Saturday afternoon Muffin Run for Elderly in Kwun Tong
HKK has helped set up a bijou pâtisserie, Bake a Difference, with one of its regular home bakers, trained patissier Alana Ho, where you can order their home baked breads, bagels and muffins online and they deliver it to your homes. Every cent they make is donated to homeless charities. The initiative also tries to be as sustainable as possible. “We strongly discourage our volunteers from using plastic and hand out reusable bags but we are never going to refuse food for the homeless because we don’t like what it’s wrapped in,” Kaye concedes. “The quantities donated at collections often exceed my wildest expectations and you just have to roll with it! The home baked stuff is easier to control. We always use compostable bags to wrap it and create reusable bread boxes out of recycled waste. Each bread box is illustrated with doodled designs by marginalized artists [from her mental health non-profit groups Mental Ideas and Bipolar Hong Kong, both of which she founded] and inscribed with a simple message of solidarity for our homeless friends. We’re particularly grateful to bipolar artist Juliana Kung for designing our Home Kong Kitchen emblem.”
Refugee Union
There are many ways you can volunteer for Home Kong Kitchen. You can bake a difference as a home baker, make a difference by donating a single loaf a week, or you can create a difference as an artist on their crafty creative projects! “We are also always looking for potential collaborators and volunteers. We are particularly keen to hear from people with vans or SUVs who can help us with our deliveries on a one-off or part-time basis.” I ask her how volunteers can get in touch. “We finally have a website where I occasionally remember to upload photos and post.” What about social media? “After 15 months, I am yet to make my first post.” I suggest this makes her the least successful virtue signaller in Hong Kong. She grins. “At least nobody can accuse me of doing it for likes!”
More information on Hong Kong Kitchen can be found at their website
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