This 2020 recap is a few days overdue, but we would be remiss if we didn’t take the opportunity to reflect on our year as a team and to look forward to the next year. As we set our goals/intentions for the new year, we look back at our successes during 2020 and reflect on ways to build on them moving forward.

This pandemic has really whooped our asses. If you put a drink in my hand, I’d tell you all the ways in which this year absolutely sucked as far as running a food business. But we’re not going to get much out of dwelling on the hardships. We get far more out of celebrating the successes we’ve had, and we’ve had a few in spite of the swirling sh*tstorm we’ve collectively endured.

This is only a sampling of what we accomplished with your support this year. We are so dearly grateful for our loyal, encouraging supporters! This magic literally could not happen without you. You have a choice in which business practices you support every time you open your wallet. Thank you for choosing with us! OK, here we go!

Launch of Grocery!

We did our first run of Grocery Bags on April 2, 2020. (You can read more about it here and here.) Grocery has been a surprisingly sustainable source of work for us! The best thing to come out of this program (for me) was the unexpected pleasure of signing up to do something you’re not 100% about and then just getting really into it and working hard to make it successful. I didn’t think it was going to stick, and I’m glad we tried it anyway because it has stuck. Some customers, like our friend Jesse, have been relying on our Grocery Bag as their main source of food at home. This is rewarding work!

What made me really excited about expanding our grocery program was the collaboration with Mt. Hope Community Center and Camp St. Ministries, our local neighborhood food pantry. Every week since April, we have committed to 30 grocery bag donations for their clients, whose limited access to fresh produce was further curtailed by the pandemic. (FYI This work is ongoing, and you can support it with your purchase!)

Befriending our neighborhood activists Jackie, Donver, Eugene & Helen, and brainstorming ways to work together, has been a gift for us. Getting a call from them when they know our team or I can be helpful lets us know that we’re an appreciated resource to our community. I am especially proud that we were able to finagle a gift of 132 turkeys for Camp St. Ministries’ Thanksgiving dinner drive! This donation was made possible by the generous funding of Providence Presbyterian Church and our Sysco rep Tom, who moved mountains and cut through red tape to get us turkeys delivered at cost during a pandemic year when turkeys were scarce.

We were surprised to see this very-slapped-together pandemic pivot contributed over 10% of our sales last year. We’re going to do more here. Stop giving Jeff Bezos your money and come shop with us!

Second Annual Fundraiser to Benefit MLK Jr Elementary

With your help, we donated $6,400 to the Parent-Teacher Organization at the school across the street from us, MLK Jr. Elementary. MLK is a community school that serves kids from underserved, underprivileged communities, including ours. The funds went towards purchasing PPE and school supplies for each child to cope with pandemic-style schooling. We’ re excited to continue blowing up this fundraiser in the coming years. Could we raise $10,000 next year? Only with your support!

Expansion of employee benefits

We introduced Rebelle-subsidized health insurance this year for our team, what a milestone! This was on my list of goals to accomplish by Year 3 of Rebelle and we got there a bit late, but uh… there was this whole pandemic that set us back just a touch! 

Beginning in January 2021, all full-time employees are eligible for Rebelle-sponsored health insurance after 90 days of service. We have employees enrolled in the program right now! HealthSource RI is our dope partner in this pursuit, and they made it easy by helping us estimate the cost to employees & employer and showing up in person during the pandemic to sign up our team (Fran, you’re a hero!).

Our team has more choices for health insurance plans & providers than I had when I worked for a certain large RI-based Drugstore Chain & Healthcare Company. Personally, I have serious misgivings about the health insurance industry, and know enough to know that health insurance does not equal access to health care… But as an employer, I’m pretty happy to have concocted the program we have today. If we can lower the barrier to employees being able to seek & afford health care, which I believe we are doing, we’re all going to be better off. Baby steps.

So our whole benefits package for full-time employees now comprises: paid time off for vacation & sickness (~2 weeks per year), a fully-funded & fully-vested 401(k) with employer match after 6 months, and subsidized health & dental insurance. We’re like a legit company now! Come work with us!

Launch of our sister bakery & café, Little Sister

Little Sister was my personal passion project sabotaged by the pandemic, and we still made it! It took 3 contractors, battles with National Grid, cajoling the city inspectors to come do their jobs, and a ton of sweat equity from us to get it done. I learned an insane amount executing this project, and I am so proud to share that I led all the interior design and layout planning, which I had only ever done for Rebelle! We took it to a WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL with Lil Sis. It is sooooo beautiful and stunning!

Little Sister is a beautiful homage to my homeland of Puerto Rico right here in the East Side, but please don’t see it as a vanity project! This has been a team effort from the get-go.

It’s been a joy to see Juan cooking up amazing food in the kitchenette and connecting with his Puerto Rican roots, and our fellow Nuyorican baker Alyssa has learned to make deliciously flaky quesito pastries like the ones I gobbled in the panaderías of my youth. Michele, our production manager at Rebelle, was a key figure in developing our recipes (or recreating them from my memory!) alongside Lauren B., the mistress of all yeasted doughs. And I’ve enjoyed my return to the kitchen as well, as head baker at Little Sister. There is always something new to learn and working with my hands to feed people is nothing short of soul-soothing for me in a time like this.

Little Sister is open on weekends only, Friday-Sunday 8-2. We’re working on expanding our hours, but this pandemic is not helping! Check out the menu, peep Instagram for specials and call in your order!

Thank you sooooooo much for your fierce & loyal support this year. I sincerely hope our work has made you proud to be our supporters. We look forward to feeding you & being here for you in 2021! ✌️