Ovenderful is a healthy baking social enterprise, which means a business with a soul. It is about simplicity, sophistication and wellness. It is about delicious bakes that celebrate small moments of life – family time is all about chatting over endless slices of a double chocolate cake, harsh winters are bearable because of a warm apple pie, quiet time with oneself is just about a cup of tea, a great book and a choco chip cookie and catching up with friends meant sharing a lovely Swiss roll or cheese puff !

That is the essence that Ovenderful captures, but with a healthy approach. It is about making inclusive, healthy and organic bakes that are free from preservatives, harmful additives and colours.

I founded the Ovenderful Mom Bakers Community in November 2014, current number of members –  30,000+.

Main focus was and is healthy baking entirely – the only of its kind in India and globally as well, since there are no other FB groups of this size with this kind of unique theme. Apart from that a huge degree of commitment is present within the group to contribute to community causes through their baking – this is done via directly baking for NGOs and distributing or baking for fundraisers for the NGOs.

We work like a close-knit community that exchanges ideas and recipes with each other, to enable a better understanding about using alternative, indigenous flours or ingredients to make baking healthy and change mindsets about the same.

Almost 90% of the members are mothers – and we are widely spread across cities in India and many international locations too, especially US. Some cities with the largest number of mom bakers are Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi/NCR, Pune and Hyderabad, and some in Coimbatore, Kochi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad as well. Internationally, we have a significant number of OMBC members present in the US, UK, UAE, Singapore and Australia, with a few in KL, HongKong and Pakistan too.

Some details of the social impact activities –

• OV BakeStreat – 45 volunteer bakers carried it out the first distribution for the ‪#‎OVBakeStreAT Program. Covering street children / children of migrant labour in 5 cities – Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Coimbatore and Delhi/NCR. The number of children expected to be covered on this first weekend of launch was 1000-1500. Finally we covered over 2000 children on the first weekend it was launched ( July 2016) and over 10,000 subsequently.
• 5 OMBC bakers baked for the kids at Jeevarathni Foundation, which cares for abused and trafficked children in Bangalore.
• Valentine’s Day Bake Sale Fundraiser for geysers for the ladies at Cheshire Old Age Home ( pictures on The Bake Collective page)
• Partnered with Kritagyata Trust to bake (and almost 20-30 more bakers joined in as well and 80% of them were from OMBC) for 2000 children for a Children’s Day distribution in November 2016, at government schools in rural areas of Neelmangala close to Bengaluru. Again a huge set of bakers covered close to 3000 , in November 2017.
• Fund raiser for CARE Animal Shelter – Feb / March 2016 . We went to DPS Yelahanka and raised Rs 30,000
• 7 OMBC members baked for the Make a Difference bake sale in Christ College – an NGO operating in 23 cities in India, mobilizing youth to provide equitable outcomes for children in shelter homes. M.A.D’s interventions are designed to help children in shelter homes break out of their cycle of poverty once they leave the shelters. They support close to 450 children in Bangalore and through Sahyog, an initiative of CSA (Centre for Social Action), Christ University, had arranged for a “pre-ordered” bake sale. The college was to buy 700-750 cupcakes for one of it’s farewell functions as a way of donating to the MAD cause of Dream camps ( Raised Rs 32,500) –
• The Community has been recognized by the Global COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg in April 2017 and was invited as one of the influential community leaders across Asia, in an event conducted by Facebook, for 8 such communities from across the region. Sheryl was present to recognize and understand the work being done, there as well, in November 2017.
• Worked with A Thousand Cranes to bake over 1000 cupcakes to raise funds and awareness with the United Nations supported Freedom Project India, for Anti-Trafficking.
• Baked over 900 muffins for children from across 30 orphanages for Nakshatra, the inter-orphanage talent fest, with Bhumi Foundation

The Government of Karnataka chose to collaborate with the community, for a key online contest run-up event as part of the International Millets Fair 2018 to promote use of healthy millets in our bakes.

Should you like to email to me, please reach out at ovenderful@gmail.com.

Love,

Simran