Sara’s Kitchen

In 2018, we honored our dear Sara Stepanian by establishing “Sara’s Kitchen” to support the nutritional needs of vulnerable and orphaned children in Tanzania. Sara lived by the mantra that “Food is Love.”

With the help of her family, friends and donors, we are in the process of building our fourth, “Sara’s Kitchen” at the NASA Nursery School in the Makao Maypa Village in Tanzania. For many of the children attending the school, Sara’s Kitchen will be providing the only meal they have each day.

The first Sara’s Kitchen was built in 2019 at Shades of Hope’s original school. The kitchen, pictured below, fed the needs of the 90 children that attended the school as well as the 11 children that lived there full time.

The second Sara’s Kitchen was built at Mama Jane’s orphanage in 2019. Mama Jane cares for 50 orphaned children at her center above the village of Ngaramtoni outside of Arusha. Sara’s Kitchen provides 3 meals a day for these children as well as the older children who have aged out of the orphanage but still live on the grounds at the Butler Bunkhouse and Poppy’s Place. Each Sunday, Mama Jane feeds not only the children in her care but the entire community around the village. For many, this will be their only substantial meal for the week. The kitchen was repainted during our visit there in 2023 and it remains the center of activity for all.

Vegetables from Wyatt’s Garden, Chickens from Micah’s Chicken Coop and Maize and Beans from Pop’s Pantry are all prepared with a photo of Sara hanging in the kitchen watching over all with love.

The third and largest Sara’s Kitchen, was built when Shades of Hope opened an academy in 2020. Sara’s Kitchen at Shades of Hope Academy feeds up to 400 children a day as well as the 90 children that live full-time at the school.

In 2023, Scott’s Legacy traveled to the Makao Mapya Village of over 700 people in desperate need of clean water. As part of the program to provide clean water, we are constructing “Sara’s Kitchen” and establishing a food program to supply the school with maize and beans each month. When we learned that many children were not attending the beautiful school we built because they were hungry, we knew we needed a Sara’s Kitchen. We expect the current attendance of 40 students to go up dramatically once the kitchen is completed in late 2023-early 2024. Again, the kitchen will become an integral part of bringing this community together. Once the clean water project has been completed, we will plant Wyatt’s Garden to provide Sara’s Kitchen with fresh vegetables as well.

Sara’s Kitchen continues to provide thousands of meals to others.