High Schoolers Serve Up Cross-Cultural Partnership

Saranghae Desserts is a non-profit bakery run by high school students. Since the beginning of 2021, Saranghae has partnered with Nehemiah and has shared the donation of its profits with Nehemiah. To learn more about what Saranghae is and the people that make it all possible, Nehemiah’s Executive Vice President, Harry Hawkins, sat down with Kaitlyn Ko and Alex Li, two high school seniors that work at Saranghae. Saranghae was founded during quarantine as a way to spread love to those stuck at home and to support Covid relief efforts with its proceeds. As Covid died down, there was a clear need for racial justice and Saranghae shifted its focus to Nehemiah. The name Saranghae means “I love you” in Korean and is used by Saranghae Desserts to spread love and promote Asian culture in the Madison area. Being part of the Asian American community, Alex and Kaitlyn have felt what many minorities have felt in being the “odd one out” and having none of their peers know or respect their culture and customs. They want to promote an inclusive, multicultural community where everyone cares for each other. 

Being high school students, Alex and Kaitlyn never really thought they could make a difference. They felt cultural pressure to focus solely on their education and to “not make waves” or go against the norm. Currently, most of their time is spent being a student, but they’ve realized that they can both be a student and make a difference in their community. They’ve also decided that they can/will continue to make a difference while simultaneously learning and bettering themselves, a lesson a lot of adults can learn. 

For the past few years, Saranghae Desserts has generously donated its profits to Nehemiah in solidarity in recognizing racial inequalities in our community. Many people, including adults, don’t realize that we all have the ability right where we are to make a difference in the inequalities that exist around us. They took their enjoyment of baking and turned it into something that impacted larger issues in their community.

For Alex and Kaitlyn, joining Saranghae came with a lot of challenges and new experiences, but despite these challenges, they used the skills and resources they had at their disposal to be a part of the cause for racial justice and creating a stronger community, all while being full-time students. Nehemiah wants to thank Kaitlyn and Alex and all those at Saranghae Desserts for partnering with us and for donating their profits to our cause. If you want to learn more about Saranghae or just want to try some of their delicious baked goods, visit Saranghaedesserts.org

Listen to the full conversation on The Nehemiah Community Transformation Podcast.

Article authored by Harry J. Hawkins from an interview conversation with Kaitlyn Ko and Alex Li.