
PHOTO: Staff at Sarah Bellum's package a holiday cupcake order Thursday, Dec. 12. The bakery's staff are primarily individuals with long-term brain injuries. (Rockne Roll/The Jewish Review)
By ROCKNE ROLL
The Jewish Review
Tucked into a small storefront in Multnomah Village is one of Portland’s few kosher bakeries, and a spot that works for a good cause.
Sarah Bellum’s Bakery and Workshop was founded in 2016 by Rik Lemoncello, a professor of speech-language pathology (better known as speech therapy) at Pacific University in Forest Grove.
“I received an award with some funding to start up a new program, and decided that a bakery for hiring and working with folks with brain injuries to get back out into the community was going to be a great a great model,” he said.
The bakery’s name is a play on “cerebellum,” the portion of the brain which controls motor functions, including speech. The staff is largely comprised of people dealing with long-term brain injuries – people whose challenges can exclude them from much of the rest of society.
“For many of our participants, it’s an opportunity to get out of the house, to have something with purpose and meaning to do and have a sense of connection,” Lemoncello said. “One of the biggest problems after brain injury is social isolation. So having a place where you can feel comfortable, you don’t have to explain yourself, and you get to do something with purpose and meaning is valuable.”
Two years ago, the bakery received kosher dairy certification from Oregon Kosher. It’s a process that started when Lemoncello, who’s not Jewish, realized that the bakery’s location in Multnomah Village put him near the core of Portland’s Orthodox Jewish community.
“I was informed that there are no other kosher bakeries in Southwest Portland other than Safeway,” he said. “We can do a product that’s much better than a Safeway cupcake or baked treat, and make it more accessible.”
The kosher certification process was long, including revamping the bakery’s entire supply chain to ensure that every ingredient that went into each sweet treat was kosher. With only one set of ovens and facilities, their kosher dairy certification means even the vegan cupcakes are halachically a dairy product.
The bakery operates as a 501c3 charitable organization – Lemoncello is a volunteer, and the bakery secured its location thanks to the generosity of the building’s owner after operating in its early years at Farmer’s Markets in Hillsdale and Beaverton.
“Everything goes back into the organization,” Lemoncello said. “We are not a lucrative production bakery. Sales of our products funds about half of our expenses and the rest comes from fundraising and grant-writing support.”
Not lucrative, perhaps, but an invaluable connection to community and something approaching normalcy for the 45 brain injury survivors who make the operation go.
“We’re all in the same boat,” bakery staffer Brent said of his colleagues.
Now 60 years old, Brent was 24 when he was assaulted outside a bar in San Diego. The attack left him in a coma for three months and hospitalized for a year. He started working at Sarah Bellum’s in 2017.
“I love this, this is my social outlet,” he said. “I come here to be around people, like one of the people.”
Among Sarah Bellum’s holiday offerings is an extra-chocolatey cupcake decorated in blue and white. The bakery will also be producing hamantaschen for Congregation Kesser Israel’s Purim celebrations in 2025.
More information is available online at sarahbellumsbakery.org.
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