Earlier in the year, Adult Trainee Lydia Adombila (left), had the opportunity to create a weekly special for our restaurant based on a dish from her native Ghana. “At first, no one was ordering it, and I was like, “Oh no!”, she says. “But within a short time, so many people ordered it...Then they said, ‘We want more jollof.’ [I was] dancing, singining, ‘Jollof, hollof!’ I was so happy.”

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When Adult Trainee Melida McCain (right) moved here from Lima, Starting her career from scratch and without friends or family nearby, she wasn’t prepared for what an impact it would make to see her own Peruvian dishes - antichuchos and picarones - on the menu. “My name was there next to the item,” she recalls. “It felt so special - like you’re important, like you have value.”

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Excerpt taken from San Diego Magazine’s profile of MAKE Projects in the November 2023 issue, pages 30-35.