Bad Bitches gives out more than $30,000 in scholarships to local female F&Bers

Last April freelance chef Sarah Adams, Oak and Macintosh pastry chef Kelly Kleisner, and Butcher & Bee project manager Randi Weinstein founded Bad Bitches, an all-female pop-up dinner series with a mission: showcase the many talents of Charleston’s F&B women and raise money to help them achieve their dreams. Well, as we’d anticipated, bitches got shit done and just eight months later, the organization just gave out their first batch of scholarship checks.

On Sunday, Bad Bitches delivered $30,964 in funds to 12 deserving F&B women.

“A lot of them are using the money for somm exams, another one is starting a podcast,” Adams says. And this is just the start of what Bad Bitches hope to do. This past month the organization ran a social media campaign, Bad Bitches Talk Body, to promote positive body images within the culinary world (full disclosure: I participated in the series). Next up the organization plans to give out another round of scholarships this spring.

“You get really emotional,” says Weinstein of the philanthropic spirit that overcame her at yesterday’s scholarship ceremony. “One of the women is using the money to take an organic farming class. We gave her $795. That money is not a lot, but then you think of it in terms of that amount preventing someone from moving forward … then it is.”

No word on more pop-ups at present, but stay tuned for a call for applications for Bad Bitches next round of scholarships.