Sweet donation says ‘thank you’
Star Raffe and her daughter Summer
When Star was a child and teen, her mom depended on GHP FISH Food Bank to keep them fed. Now that she is tasting sweet success as a small business owner, Star Raffe is giving back by donating packages of the Mama’s Brittle she sells through two-dozen markets in the area.
She dropped by the food bank recently, meeting operations manager Bill Mumford and leaving off several cases of packaged brittle, which will brighten the carts and sweeten the dinners of many clients. Star also donated a basket of brittle to the community celebration of GHP FISH’s 50th anniversary.
It’s both an outgrowth of a charitable streak she’s been acting on for half a dozen years, and a direct “thank you” to FISH for keeping her going when help was most needed
“I’ve always wanted to adopt a mom and get toys and such for the family,” she said in a recent interview. “For five or six years, now, I’ve adopted a single mom for Christmas, because of what happened to my mom, as my dad wasn’t really in the picture.”
A few years ago, Star left a real estate career – but kept her license, and her options – when a project to make gifts turned into a career.
“I was trying to make presents for my friends for Christmas, and I came across a recipe page that said ‘brittle,’ and I started researching how to make it,” she said.
“I made some and took it to one of my friends who pushed me into making it and selling it. And she’s ordered it like 10 times from me.”
But there’s a difference between whipping up a batch as a friendship gift and making professional quantities in a commercial kitchen.
Between the initial inspiration to production of her first commercial batch, there was a long period of preparation – finding a proper kitchen, investigating licensing, permitting, banking, insurance and legal requirements, as well as building a business plan and a compilation of recipes.
Three years ago Mama’s Brittle became a reality. Today, she does all the brittle-making and has two part-timers who help with pickup and delivery and other chores, but the responsibility for keeping the company growing and thriving is on Star’s shoulders.
She’s now in a growing list of supermarkets, local markets and boutique-style stores mostly in the greater Tacoma-Gig Harbor-Peninsula area but also north to Port Ludlow south to Tumwater, and she is busy adding new combinations to her brittle styles.
Through it all, she had the support of friends and family, especially husband Justin and their daughter, Summer, age 7.
Name Game:
Pronunciation of Star’s last name? Rah-fee.
Why “Star”? “My mom said that my grandma passed away three months before I was born. When they went to her house, they found papers on the kitchen table with the word ‘star’ written maybe 20 times.” A sign, perhaps.