Vimala Rajendran grew up in India, and moved to North Carolina in the 1980s with her then-husband.
After her marriage dissolved and she became a struggling single mother, she started to cook for people— first in her home then at the eatery she founded: Vimala’s Curryblossom Café in Chapel Hill.
Vimala is part of our special collaborative project, Storymakers. She decided to record a piece about her restaurant and its unusual 'Everybody Eats' policy. The policy means what it says: folks can get a meal at Vimala’s, whether or not they can afford to pay.
This story is a part of our special collaborative project,Storymakers: Durham. WUNC is one of 15 stations across the country chosen to be a part of the innovative public media project called Localore: Finding America.
The project is being put together by theAssociation of Independents in Radio and is funded in large part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The project is produced by John Biewen, a producer with theCenter for Documentary Studies at Duke University and host of theScene on Radio podcast. The project will explore the things that bring us together and divide us as a community, like race, class and faith.
Find out more and submit a written story of your own atstorymakersdurham.org.