Travel Baldwin County Highway 104 between Fairhope and Robertsdale and you will pass Brodie’s Cream and Bean in the heart of Silverhill, a small-town ice cream counter and gift shop that looks like it belongs to a quieter era. Inside, the old-fashioned soda fountain sells coffee drinks, frappes, malts, shakes, waffle cones, and banana splits made with Old Dutch old-fashioned ice cream. The gift shop holds local jellies, jams, candles, and cutting boards. And tucked among the local goods are handmade crafts from Tanzania, the proceeds of which have helped fund nearly 50 clean-water projects in East Africa.
That last part is the story most people don’t see when they stop in for a milkshake.
From Williamsburg to Silverhill
Owner Lisa Brodie grew up in Williamsburg, Virginia, where, she says, “I would learn about the early history of America and then go see it.” Her family moved to Searcy, Arkansas, when she was ten, and there she met her husband, Curtis, at Harding University. Both earned teaching degrees and ended up teaching at the same school, Mobile Christian. Curtis was a youth minister and coach; Lisa says she always wanted to marry a coach and youth minister. In 1999 the family fell in love with Silverhill, though the right house took a while. They eventually settled in Daphne with their five kids while Curtis coached football and basketball at Fairhope High School and later Bayside Academy.
Fourteen years later, Lisa found a lot in Silverhill and a place to open the ice cream shop she and Curtis had always imagined: “a place for students to gather.” They closed on their house and the shop property in the same week. “I don’t recommend that!” she says. The current location is the business’s third, a larger space they moved into in April 2022.
A Trip to Tanzania That Changed Everything
In 2007, Lisa went on a mission trip to Tanzania. There she saw a mother, “just like me,” walking an enormous distance to fetch water in a plastic bottle, water that was brown. “It broke my heart. I couldn’t stop thinking this could be me.” She returned home unable to let it go, went back three more times between 2008 and 2009, and prayed for an answer. Her husband suggested starting a nonprofit to fund water projects, and volunteers began appearing almost immediately.
In 2010 they formed a 501(c)(3). The board named it Maji: Hope; “maji” means water in Swahili, and with water, the thinking goes, comes hope. Lisa began visiting Baldwin County schools, telling students about communities without clean water. The kids responded by selling t-shirts and African bracelets, and by July 2010 they had raised enough to drill the first well, funded entirely by Baldwin County students.
Today Maji: Hope has completed close to 50 projects, working with a South Korean driller who runs a nonprofit and charges only cost. Not every project is a well; some simply pipe and pump water from a nearby source. Tanzania is the size of Texas, Lisa notes, so the need remains vast.
A Volunteer Operation, Start to Finish
Maji: Hope runs entirely on volunteers. Nobody takes a salary; the only paid professional is the CPA who keeps the nonprofit in good standing. Lisa’s 22nd trip to Tanzania was approaching in January, with a family trip planned for spring. Her daughters fund their own travel by working at the ice cream shop and running a clothing line of bleached, redesigned secondhand pieces sold in the gift shop. Tanzanian women sell Lisa their handmade items, and every dollar from those sales supports Maji: Hope.
A Gathering Place on Purpose
Back in Silverhill, the shop itself is doing what Lisa always intended. “We want Brodie’s to be a gathering place,” she says. “It reminds me of a time when I was younger. I want students and families to come, put down their phones, and have a sweet place to visit with each other.” There is a back room that can be reserved for meetings, board games on the shelves, and Market Day weekends that draw food trucks and regional vendors.
The gift shop carries holiday ornaments, home décor, children’s clothing, and pajamas in season, alongside the always-in-stock African crafts. What looks like a charming country ice cream shop is, in fact, a small-town business with a global ledger: every scoop, every gift, every reserved table helps fund the next well.
Some shops sell ice cream. Brodie’s Cream and Bean sells ice cream, community, and, several continents away, clean water.