Lately, we’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of business....what a revelation it has been to discover how nearly every aspect of a small business—from capital to product—can serve a higher purpose. We’ve started calling this intention to repurpose every component of a small business our Big Idea.
Providence Granola joined the fun Saturday at the pop-up Buy With Heart Marketplace held at Brown University. The marketplace was hosted by the Social Enterprise Greenhouse and coincided with the 2016 SEEED (Social Enterprise Ecosystem for Economic Development) Summit in Providence.
My daughter made some cookies last month using Providence Granola's "Originola." They were delicious! I wanted to make similar cookies but I thought I'd taste all the granola flavors first. I decided I was most in love with the pistachio cardamom. This flavor was created by Providence Granola’s Iraqi (ethnically Assyrian) chef, Evon Nano, and it was marvelous.
Isaaq fled Somalia as a young man to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. He arrived in the United States in September last year, and in October, we welcomed him to the Providence Granola Project. Recently, we asked Isaaq's case manager at the local refugee resettlement agency Dorcas International Institute of RI--which refers refugees to us for job training--to talk to Isaaq about his experiences.
It seemed clear to our refugee staff and trainees that if a US senator would take time out of his busy schedule to visit us in our kitchen and extend a welcome, they must be doing something important.
“I’ve always been moved by the kindness of others, like the roommate I met on the train. And over my 20-plus years in the food industry, I’ve also seen how food can impact people’s lives and they can really grow in this career path. This was what attracted me to Beautiful Day and the Providence Granola Project. It gives refugees hope and a chance to pursue a path toward self-sustainability.
