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WE RISE Thursday: Ola Ahmed is the founder of Kindness Caf\\xe9, a social enterprise in Windsor, Ontario. Ola is an international student with a graduate degree in medical biotechnology and cancer research. While growing up in Egypt, her mother cooked a lot of food for friends and family. They prepared a lot of food, ate a lot of food, but they also threw out a lot of food. They threw food out to make sure that the next meal was fresh. However, on the very same night, as Ola walked the streets of Cairo, people were eating out of the garbage. Even as a child, this didn\\u2019t sit well with her. She thought, isn\\u2019t there a better way to give people this food?.

Soon Ola\\u2019s academic journey brought her to Canada for graduate school. She was fortunate enough to get hired by a franchised coffee shop as a BARISTA during her studies. On her first night shift, her supervisor dumped a lot of food. The garbage was overflowing with display food, food from the fridge and food that was still wrapped and packaged! She realized right away that this is a problem everywhere. At this moment, Ola committed to doing something about it. She started the Kindness Caf\\xe9, which empowers her community through nutrition and compassion by harvesting surplus and unsold food.

Ola, owner, and founder of this food rescue program started this company because she didn\\u2019t believe that people should go hungry when perfectly good food is sent to the landfill every day.\\xa0

Kindness Cafe\\xa0

Kindness Cafe is a pop-up driven social enterprise business that rescues surpluses and unsold food from restaurants, cafes, farms, and groceries in Windsor and serve them back to the community with care and love using a Pay as You Feel (PAYF) concept.

New paying system in Windsor

What makes this program unique is that there is no price for the food that you take - instead, users are asked to \\u201cpay what you feel.\\u201d This pay it forward system allows those who have extra money to spare to \\u201cpay\\u201d for those who don\\u2019t.

A Pay As You Feel concept means that people will pay what they can afford to help the community and the environment. However, for the less fortunate we would be more than happy to put a smile on their face and fill their tummies and hearts with food and Kindness.

This pay as you feel the concept is actually a sophisticated way to ask for a donation, customers are not actually paying for the food, food is basically for free, but the customers are paying to support this movement and would love to do good for the community and our environment.

This movement promotes inclusivity and is founded on trust. Unlike other food assistance programs, everyone is welcome, no proof of ID or proof income is required. we hope that we can create a community where food donation is normalized.

Kindness caf\\xe9 will make sure that it will minimize food waste by rescuing food and changing them into delicious and healthy food. It\\u2019s a cycle that we want to create and we want the community to help us do that. Starting from saving the food, using the food, then finally composting the unusable food and never take anything for granted.

We talk about coming up with the idea to solve the food waste problem, creating a social enterprise, why she decided to make it a "pay as you feel" business model, what resources and tools she used while creating her business, how she markets Kindness Cafe in the Community, challenges she's overcome with her business, what she has learned from running her own business, and so much more! You won't want to miss out on hearing all about the creation of this incredible organization!