Chamber hosts ribbon cutting

Brodie's Cream & Bean

Local establishment supports Maji : Hope charity, bringing clean drinking water to African villages

Posted 10/25/17

Chamber hosts ribbon cutting at Brodie’s Cream & Bean in Silverhill

SILVERHILL, Alabama — The Central Baldwin Chamber of Commerce joined with Silverhill town officials Tuesday, Oct. 17 to host …

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Chamber hosts ribbon cutting

Brodie's Cream & Bean

Local establishment supports Maji : Hope charity, bringing clean drinking water to African villages

Posted

SILVERHILL, Alabama — The Central Baldwin Chamber of Commerce joined with Silverhill town officials Tuesday, Oct. 17 to host a grand opening and ribbon cutting for Brodie’s Cream & Bean in Silverhill.

But the small establishment, tucked off of Main Street (Alabama 104) is more than just a business.

When Lisa and Curtis Brodie built their home in Silverhill they knew it would be the perfect place to establish office space for their charity Maji : Hope.

According to Lisa Brodie, the idea for Maji : Hope was born out of a dream she had of going to Africa when she was a little girl. In 2007, her dream became a reality when she got the opportunity to participate in a medical mission trip.

“The trip was primarily for doctors, but anybody could go who was willing to help out,” she said in an interview last year. “God put it on my heart that this was something I needed to do, so I went.”

She never planned on starting a charity of her own, but she says the idea came when she was sitting talking with a group of doctors.

“I asked them, ‘What is the biggest need of the people here,’” she said. “I was thinking they would say something like malaria, AIDS or some other type of disease.”

The answer they gave surprised her.

“They said the biggest problem was a lack of clean drinking water,” Brodie said. “After seeing some of the horrible conditions where the local people had to go and get drinking water, I went back to my husband and said, ‘I don’t know what we have to do or how to do it, but somehow we have to help them.’”

Lisa, a long time educator who was homeschooling their three daughters (they have two older sons, one in college and one a recent college graduate and newlywed), and Curtis, who was a teacher at Fairhope Intermediate School, did the only thing they knew to do.

They began talking to other teachers and parents and started a penny-drive fundraising campaign within the local school system. They also started their own non-profit originally called DigDeepGiveWell, which was later changed to Maji : Hope (maji means water in Swahili).

While the organization has always sold things like T-shirts, hats, mugs and other items to raise money, Brodie said, the idea of selling goods made by local villagers actually came from the villagers themselves.

A group of mothers from the Endevesi village calling themselves the Imani Group (imani means faith in Swahili) approached the organization about doing something to help raise money for the water project in their village, Brodie said.

“They offered hand-made items that could be used as jewelry, Christmas ornaments, things like that,” she said. The items were collected and sold for $10 each.

“For years, we were offering the items for sale from our homes, but it just got to be too much,” Brodie said.

So they began looking for a place they could call home in order to sell the items and after an exhaustive search, found a place on the corner of Highway 104 and Ninth Avenue, across from The Station in Silverhill.

“When God first led us to this place, we knew that we had to also open a coffee shop and ice cream parlor to go with it,” Lisa Brodie told guests to the establishment on Oct. 17. “We have been so blessed and want to thank all of the people here for their support.”

The Cream & Bean opened on Memorial Day weekend, she said, with the ultimate goal of being self-sustaining and offset the costs of having the facility.

The business is now open from 6:30 to 9 a.m. and from 2:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, offering a range of ice cream, including cones and cups, waffle cones, sundaes and a banana split.

The coffee selection include a regular brew, iced coffee and Frappuccino, along with a brew called Kilimanjaro Tea.

In addition to jewelry and ornaments, Maji : Hope sells hand-made items including scarves and blankets.

“We had a great summer,” Lisa Brodie said, “and as the weather gets cooler, we’re hoping to bring people in with some community events, such as live entertainment and movie nights.”

You can learn more at majihope.org.