Christmas was in the air. The aromas of butter, sugar, chocolate, and almonds mingled together in the kitchen, as volunteers stirred five-pound pots of bubbling toffee candy by hand. By the end of the day 500 pounds of toffee would be added to the growing stockpile waiting to be packaged in beautiful boxes and shipped around the country. There would be 8,000 pounds of toffee by the end of the season, all made for a greater purpose—to fund ministries dedicated to making disciples around the world.
On this particular day, two women stood close together, weighing toffee on the same scale. They didn’t know one another, but had both volunteered to help Hallelujah Toffee for the day. As they got deeper into conversation, one of the women shared that her husband had passed just a month prior. She was feeling incredibly vulnerable about his eternal destiny. Had he done all the right steps and confessions before he died to go to heaven? Had anything been missed? The other woman shared that she also had lost her husband one month before. In fact, they discovered their husbands had died during the exact same week! However, this second woman had confidence because of what Jesus had done on the cross, and wasn’t fearful. One grieving woman ministered to the spirit of the other for two or three hours as they continued the work of weighing toffee. These God-ordained moments of ministry and connection were par for the course in the Hallelujah Toffee kitchen.
Hallelujah Toffee, based in the small town of Minden, Nevada, has grown over the last 25 years from a small family-run side-hustle dedicated to paying off one family member’s medical student loans, into a volunteer-powered non-profit that contributes all of their profits (an expected 180k this year) to missions. Each box of toffee includes their mission statement and a link to discover more about the ministries the toffee sales support.
For years, volunteers made toffee out of a Catholic church’s commercial kitchen, hauling hundreds of pounds of butter, sugar, chocolate, and almonds in at 5AM each morning, and hundreds of pounds of toffee out each night. In 2021, they finally got their own, specially designed kitchen, and increased toffee production from 3,000 pounds to 8,000!
For a long time, Hallelujah Toffee solely sponsored scholarships for kids from the slums of Kenya, who they affectionately nicknamed their “candy kids.” But after becoming a stand-alone non-profit and expanding their production capacity, they had a lot more money to give. They could make enough toffee to sponsor all their candy kids in a single day! Since the sponsorship ministry they supported wasn’t planning on expanding, it was time to consider what other impact their toffee money could make in the world. After reflection, the Hallelujah Toffee crew realized that what had most changed each of their lives wasn’t education or a meal or any other act of compassion but Jesus. They knew that more than anything, that’s what this world needed. So they decided they wanted their labor of love to result in new disciples being made around the world. Something about that mission just made it easier to hand-stir each toffee pot. Around the same time, they were introduced to Novo, and realized that’s 100% what Novo is all about.
It’s been their joy to link arms with Novo as financial partners over the last couple of years, making significant contributions to Novo’s work in Ukraine and the Middle East. In Ukraine, those funds are helping our team meet the needs of people displaced by the war, as well as helping them build a trauma healing center with hopes to impact a million hurting Ukranians when the war is over.
Karen, whose mother-in-law’s secret family toffee recipe started it all, says Hallelujah Toffee has two separate areas of ministry impact, which she compares to two sides of a swinging door. “On one side of the swinging door is the production that happens in our little valley,” she says. “You see the body of Christ come together; everybody works together in the most incredible way.” On the other side of the door is getting to write sizable checks to local and global ministries that are impacting the lives of hundreds of people and leading them to Jesus. “It’s like a party!” Karen shares. “We get to pray and then write out checks.”
Karen’s mom Jeannie, who heads up the planning, ordering, and production process for the toffee, says the ministry that happens in the kitchen during toffee making season is undeniable. They pray over every pot of toffee while it’s being stirred. They pray over every box of toffee before it’s shipped out. But they also witness one God-story after another—divine connections between strangers—where powerful ministry moments happen, just like the story of the two grieving widows. Jeannie says it’s a daily thing.
Many volunteers look forward to toffee making season all year long. About 80% of them are older, retired people. Being part of Hallelujah Toffee gives them meaningful connection with others and provides a rich sense of purpose knowing they’re part of the bigger story of what God is doing around the world. “There's just some kind of sweetness that happens—not just the sugar and the butter—but between people as they are working toward a goal,” Jeannie says.
Karen’s absolute favorite day each year is the packing party. About 100 volunteers come together and build 12,000 boxes in one day, then pack all the candy into the boxes so it’s ready to be sold. “We get people from every walk of life you can imagine!” Karen exclaims. “People that probably would not step foot in a church, but maybe they need volunteer hours.” They usually have about 30-40 high school kids come for that reason. “We pray, and we watch the Lord put a 16-year-old kid who doesn’t believe in anything next to a veteran or a person who’s been a Christian for 60 years. And we watch the Holy Spirit move. Every year I leave there just floating.”
Lots of churches don’t have missions programs, and many younger people don’t have vision to give to global missions. Hallelujah Toffee is doing what they can to change that by partnering with churches: showing a video about their ministry, selling toffee in the church lobby or coffee shop, and then giving half of the proceeds to that church’s mission committee to donate wherever they want to make a Kingdom impact. They hope this new initiative will inspire more people in the church to get involved with global missions, and multiply their ministry of funding disciple makers around the world.
The bottom line? This is really good toffee. But the sweetest thing is that through every step of the production and sales process, people are experiencing the hope of Jesus. Now that’s a recipe to really get excited about!
Want to check out this candy for a cause? You can order Hallelujah Toffee directly from their website, hallelujahtoffee.org (2024 sales open on November 1).
ABOUT THIS STORY
Karen Berger is married to Craig and lives in Minden, NV. They have two daughters in college and one son in high school. Formerly a school teacher, Karen now focuses on the business, sales, and marketing side of Hallelujah Toffee. Karen and Craig began Hallelujah Toffee as a way to pay off Craig’s medical student loans. In those days, Karen and Craig would make toffee at night in the church kitchen, with the baby on the floor in a car seat! “You just do what you’ve gotta do!” Karen said. Back then it was a family affair, with both sets of parents and grandparents pitching in where they could. Even wheelchair-bound great-grandpa volunteered, tying bows on boxes—whatever they could do to help. After the loans were paid off, some of their customers said they couldn’t stop making toffee, and that’s when the candy for a cause idea was born!
Jeannie Burns and her husband Greg grew up in Chino, CA, but have lived in Minden, NV for 38 years. They have three grown daughters (including Karen) and seven grandchildren. Greg is a mechanical engineer with a sizable manufacturing business, and races motorcycles on the side. Jeannie was a stay-at-home mom with several side-hustles, but now Hallelujah Toffee is basically a full-time job. Greg had a special toffee kitchen built into his new manufacturing building a few years ago, which has streamlined the toffee-making process and maximized how much they can make each season. Jeannie and Greg have loved partnering with and learning from Novo. Greg visited Novo’s partner work in the Middle East and attended the Novo Disciple Making Cohort, which launched him into doing DBSs with friends in motocross. Those studies have really taken off, and “Dirt Church” is bearing a lot of fruit in that community. Greg and Jeannie are passionate about living simply so that they can maximize their ability to give to missions, and love the ministry doors God has opened up for them.