A CORE OF PHILANTHROPY
Xenful Kitchen’s Founder and C.E.O., Malleana Ruffin, has served and given back to communities for years. She especially enjoys helping children who have been abandoned or abused, supporting the homeless, and encouraging and inspiring women who are survivors of rape and/or domestic violence. The one thing that all these people would have in common is food, and the one thing they are all trying to achieve is a quality lifestyle.
To help improve the lives of others and do her part, Malleana often cooks for shelters or homes, speaks at seminars or small events, teaches children how to cook healthy foods so that they taste immaculate, and partners with organizations to enlighten and uplift women and children who need it the most.
A few of the organizations Malleana has volunteered with:
From 2020 through 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic created stress and times of uncertainty for us all. There were business closures and job cuts at an alarming rate, and with government support being late and then trickling away, bills continued stacking causing some people to receive eviction notices at a minimum. Additionally, food insecurity spiked tremendously – not to mention the fact that parents were forced into acting as teachers and teacher assistants for their children during “distance learning” while simultaneously having to search for work or complete their own work.
The abused were even stuck in the home with their abuser in some instances.
As a business owner and a supporter of the community that Malleana lives in and serves, she felt it her obligation to do what she could to help uplift families that were negatively impacted.
Malleana loves feeding people delicious healthy food, so she partnered with another DMV Black-Owned Business – DTR Customs (dtrcustoms.com) – in an effort to help a family (or a few families) that were forced into uncomfortable spaces due to the unfortunate happenings of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We were put in contact with three families that went from living comfortably to pushing through harsh struggles. With age being a major factor or the families having multiple school-aged children and little to no income or assistance, it seemed only proper to support them and give them a beautiful spread of food made with love. 💙
They received:
Serving All Communities
In March of 2019, Malleana traveled to Uganda, Africa with three associates on a mission trip that was organized by an L.A. Chef and directed by the Founder of AfrikaFifty6.org. In a small three-bedroom home, there lived over 40 kids (from 3 months to 17 years of age) and 4 adults – including the homeowner and the person looking after all of these children, Mama Jaja (73 years of age at the time). The house had no running water, no kitchen, limited electricity, no restroom, and no ability to provide food or proper shelter for the children who were left on Jaja’s doorstep. Each room had 6 or more old mattresses, and there was also an outhouse with mattresses inside.
We take so much for granted.
What Malleana and the group did for Mama Jaja’s orphanage lasted for only a few months, but Mama Jaja was so grateful to them for volunteering to come across the globe to help. The group of volunteers gave pampers for the 6 infant kids – all of which were bottomless upon our arrival due to a lack of funds to purchase diapers and bottoms that fit (including 2 sets of twins – the youngest @ 3 months), food and meals, clothes, books, and shoes.
The small volunteer group led crowdfunding activities on their individual social media pages which resulted in the ability to raise enough funding to put some of the school-aged kids back in classes, get the pipes fixed for running water in the house, and build a small store at the front of the house. Most importantly, the group gave them LOVE.
This experience was extremely humbling and very eye-opening to the fact that so much of what we “have” is so very taken for granted daily. The orphans & Mama Jaja have little to nothing, but they are so beautiful in spirit, so loving, so polite, and so joyful.
Malleana has an ultimate goal of creating ways to assist abandoned and orphaned children globally that are in impoverished situations.