Kuluntu's Origins
Kuluntu Bakery was born in Cape Town, South Africa in 2018. For years, we had a dream to open a women-centered nonprofit bakery. After several years of living in New York City, working for nonprofit organizations and high end bakeries, we (Stephanie & Warren) decided to move to South Africa, Warren’s home.
I (Stephanie) was burnt out from working in toxic kitchen environments with crazy hours, so I decided that it was time to launch Kuluntu. During our time in Cape Town, I spent my time learning local recipes and ingredients and teaching bread making classes with several nonprofit organizations. We moved back to the Dallas area in July of 2018 and have been baking away ever since!
“Kuluntu” means community in isiXhosa, a South African language of the amaXhosa. It reflects our belief in Ubuntu—“I am because you are.”
We operate as a community-driven nonprofit bakery, growing from a cottage bakery into a brick-and-mortar space designed for women’s power and collective action.
Our Values
Ubuntu
Ubuntu means “I am because we are.” We want to create a collective ownership that requires us all to work together to create the world we want to see. The experience of one affects us all.
Transformative Justice
We are committed to transitioning away from traditional, prescriptive pathways towards change and instead utiltizing community (human) centered methods to achieve justice for all.
Community
We intend to cultivate spaces that encourage belonging, connection and collaboration. We want every voice to be heard and considered as we seek change.
Transparency
We aim to invite and engage our consumers, partners and supporters in our operations to increase our mutual understanding of the food system and dismantle unjust and unsustainable practices.
Radical Love
Despite our individual beliefs and differences, we must center our humanity and choose to love each other. By doing so, we believe we will make better decisions and policies that consider us all.
Our Team
Stephanie Leichtle-Chalklen
Director & Baker (she/her)
Stephanie is a Dallas native who loves baking and creating inclusive spaces of gathering for the community. She has a Master’s of Public Service & Administration from Texas A&M where her studies focused on nonprofit management. She’s happy to be planting roots in Dallas surrounded by an incredible support system and community. Stephanie has worked in restaurants and kitchens since she was in high school, and she’s passionate about women’s issues and creating a safer, more equitable food system for all people. Her favorite baked goods (it’s so hard to choose!) are the fig & fennel sourdough and passionfruit kouign amann.
Anisha Mandol
Board Member (she/her)
Anisha believes in using food and food experiences to connect communities, people, and building relationships. Her work in restaurant management and product innovation at Central Market was a result of her passion and curiosities around cuisines and food cultures. Her experiences led her to independent consulting, providing guidance to building a restaurant or market from design to opening, providing operational solutions and balancing creativity and practicality. She also loves connecting people. Other than traveling, she spends her time painting, reading, and exploring new recipes to share with a full table of close friends.
Rebecca Little Alley
Board Member (she/her)
Becca cares deeply for building and participating in inclusive communities. After more than ten years fundraising in the nonprofit sector, she left the field to pursue her current passion, providing no-cost, quality mental health care to workers in the nonprofit industry. Kuluntu’s lavender lemon tarts are her pastry of choice.
Taylor Hall
Board Member (she/her)
Taylor Hall has a passion for people and service, leading her to work in the non-profit sector for the past decade. She is a vision to reality translator, by way of innovative, strategic execution. Taylor’s current work includes strategic project management, organizational development, and cross-functional leadership. She enjoys fashion, trying new eating establishments, and Kuluntu’s cinnamon rolls.
Brittany Griggs
Board Member (she/her)
Brittany is passionate about empowering others with knowledge, working within a community to create inclusivity, and helping individuals achieve their goals. She works as a financial advising professional helping clients use money as a tool for creating lasting impact. Originally from Dallas and a Lehigh University alum, Brittany is the daughter of immigrants and has traveled extensively, bringing a global perspective to everything she does. Outside of work, she enjoys cooking, traveling, playing pickleball, and spending time with her husband and their dog, Carmen. Brittany’s favorite Kuluntu treats are the rosemary and sea salt focaccia and the olive oil + ginger cake with passionfruit curd that Stephanie baked for her wedding!
Warren Leichtle-Chalklen
Board Member (he/him)
Warren is a passionate advocate for equity and justice. He is from the country currently known as (CCKA) South Africa and is committed to co-creating liberatory spaces with and under the leadership of African people on the continent, and here in the CCKA the United States of America. His scholarship, teaching and advocacy is underpinned by his lived experiences growing up in a mixed race family in segregated contexts, his teaching in global settings, and his contact with radical Ubuntu as a way of life. He loves Kuluntu’s pain au chocolat!
Note: The word South Africa is a colonial paradigm which invokes racial, gendered and class based hierarchies (apartheid). We have not been able to build a “new South Africa”, that is equitable, inclusive and socially just, from within this colonial imagination. The process of re-imagining, of breaking from the practices of the past, problematizes the current. By using the country currently known as South Africa (CCKA SA), we honor and work in community with the activists who dare us to imagine a post colonial country and world.
