09/28/2026
The Faces Behind The Purpose
Someone once taught Juju how to make pie.
She wasn’t born knowing how dough should feel in her hands, how much water is just enough, or how to rescue a crust when it tears. Somewhere along the way, someone made room for her at the table, handed her a rolling pin, and showed her. And she never forgot it.
That may be one of the most important parts of Juju’s pie history.
Recipes are wonderful, we treasure the old recipe cards that have been passed down through the years. But a recipe card can’t show you how the dough should feel when it needs just one more spoonful of water. It can’t reassure you that a torn crust can be patched, a lopsided pie can still be beautiful, or that sometimes the best memories begin with flour all over the kitchen.
Some things can only be learned by standing beside someone and doing them together.
Over the past few weeks, Pies For A Purpose had the opportunity to do exactly that.
We opened the kitchen, rolled up our sleeves, covered the counters in flour, and welcomed a wonderful group of people who were brave enough to learn the art of homemade pie pastry. There was rolling, folding, laughing, learning and, yes, probably a little patching along the way.
But something else was happening too.
We were passing it on.
Maybe someone from one of these classes will make a pie for Thanksgiving. Maybe they’ll teach their daughter, grandson, friend or neighbor someday. Maybe years from now they'll pull out a rolling pin and remember the afternoon they learned how to make their first crust. That is how pie history continues.
It doesn’t have to be perfect, it simply has to be shared. A recipe can be copied, but a memory has to be made with someone.
So invite someone into your kitchen, hand them the rolling pin. Let them make the crooked crust. Tell them who taught you. Tell them about the pie that boiled over or the Thanksgiving dessert that almost ended up on the floor.
And then let them create a story of their own.
Leave them the recipe. But more importantly, leave memories in the crust.
With love,
Juju & Pies For A Purpose, Inc.
P.S. All of us at Pies For A Purpose are so incredibly grateful to the brave souls who joined our pie pastry classes and for their generous donations benefiting Team JJ and pediatric brain tumor research. You came to learn how to make pie, but you helped us do something much bigger.
