Turning a pastime hobby into a cottage industry business, former school teacher, Maxine Ritchie of Long Island, Bahamas showcased her homemade jams and jellies creatively at the 2015 GRAC Agricultural Expo held at the Gladstone Road Agricultural Centre, March 5-7.

Mrs. Ritchie said some of the proceeds from her sales go to paying for the school fees of needy children. 

“I’m a retired teacher and after retirement I had to find something to do. After raising five children, I had a yard full of fruits and nothing to do with the fruits, so I decided I’d use them to make the preserves. And at that point, I helped needy children. So I thought this would be an outlet and something to help them,” said Mrs. Ritchie.

“So I use exhibitions, like the Jollification and the Expo, and take this opportunity to make extra money and I pay for the needy children’s school fees.”

Mrs. Ritchie also said it felt good to know that many of those children did very well: “I had a graduate from Aquinas last year who was Valedictorian -- I try to help as much as I can. I do for weddings too -- like right now I have a wedding coming up in April and they need 100 of these as favours,” said Mrs. Ritchie.

“They want ‘The Promise’, which is a jam I did for my 70th birthday. I said God only promises you 70 years and I was 70, so I named it ‘The Promise’. It has Guava, Mango, and Juju. They love that, so I make that a lot. They want that as a favour for their reception.”

Mrs. Ritchie said this came about because she wanted to save the fruits.

“My daughter was a teacher at Aquinas and know how they have the ‘Kris Kringle’ event -- she wanted a gift, so she said ‘Mummy, be creative’. So I did some jams, I did some cakes, and I made a basket. That started it off. Everybody wanted a basket. So Christmas, I would have dozens of baskets to make,” said Mrs. Ritchie.

“I kept making the jams and I kept getting orders and I kept using the money to help. And since I am helping so many at this time, I decided I’ll keep making it.”

Mrs. Ritchie said she uses the passion fruit out of her yard, as well as the guavas, the mangoes, the pineapples, and she made a new one called “Tamarind Chutney”, which she describes as great for meats.

Mrs. Ritchie added she has pepper jellies, hot and mild, as well as guinep jam, which she also mixes with passion fruit and pineapple.

“I have one that’s delicious with pineapple, mangoes, and coconut. Then I have the Paw Paw Guava jam. You say Paw Paw…it’s Papayas (laugh). Some I have labeled Papaya and some are labeled Paw Paw. I just wanted to be mischievous,” said Mrs. Ritchie.

“I enjoy doing them and I enjoy experimenting. If one doesn’t work, then I try it another way.”

Mrs. Ritchie said she exports her products to Stella Maris, Long Island, where they use her guava jam, but said she has no real plans to export out of the country.

“I’ll sell it around here. I don’t want to go into a large quantity because tomorrow I may say ‘oh well, I had enough’. It’s as I say, a ‘hobby’ and any day I may decide I am not doing it anymore,” said Mrs. Ritchie.