CCB MEDIA PHOTOS
Patriotic pies are ready for the oven in the special pie kitchen at Cape Abilities.
HYANNIS – Some sweet patriotism was baking in Hyannis yesterday.
Centerville Pie Company employees put together 150 American flag pies for veterans yesterday.
Cape Abilities clients Ben Ninesling of Hyannis, Donna Ellison of West Yarmouth and Bryan Kent of Yarmouth were crafting the pies using cherry filing with blueberries in the corner and layering on dough stripes and stars.
Cape Abilities has partnered with the pie company since 2009 and now 30 clients are also specially trained Centerville Pie Company employees.
Cape Abilities clients crafted the pies in the Centerville Pie Company kitchen at their headquarters in Independence Park in Hyannis.
Bryan Kent layers cherry filling into pie crust, the first step in making American flag pies.
The pies will be distributed to veterans who attend the TGC for the Troops event this weekend at The Golf Club of Cape Cod in Falmouth.
Centerville Pie Company President Kristin R. Broadley said, “This is our sixth year in a row doing troops’ pies. We call them American flag pies.”
She said the organizers of an event for veterans got in touch and asked her to create something special. “That’s when we started making the pies look like flags for them,” she said.
She said she likes the fact that the money raised through the event stays on the Cape and helps local veterans who may be down on their luck.
“I think it brings it all home. I think it makes us all of feel a part of supporting the troops,” she said.
Ben Ninesling, Bryan Kent and Donna Ellison, who are Centerville Pie employees and also Cape Abilities clients, show off their American flag pies.
Nancy Noble of Cape Abilities said her organization and Centerville Pie Company are great partners and Cape Abilities is proud of their clients who have jobs at the pie company.
“We are really about empowering individuals with disabilities,” she said, adding that Centerville Pie owners Kristin Broadley and Laurie Bowen have been in the forefront of that effort.
“They have been great supporters of employing individuals with disabilities and training them to be self-sufficient and independent and that’s what we’re about,” she said.
Noble said the pie project for veterans is also a cause near to her heart as well, since her father is a World War II veteran and an ex-POW.
