Story highlights

Beijing bakery employs disabled adults with bone diseases

Among its bakers is Grace Yang, who cannot walk due to contracting polio as a child

CNN  — 

Thanksgiving isn’t officially celebrated in China, but a small bakery in a Beijing suburb is filled with the aroma of this traditional American holiday.

At Bread of Life Bakery, Grace Yang and her colleagues are racing against the clock to fill orders for more than 300 Western-style pies to be delivered to homes across Beijing in time for Thanksgiving celebrations.

Their customers are mostly US expatriates living in the Chinese capital.

The 29-year-old baker was born in China’s Shaanxi province, to a family she barely remembers.

China’s abandoned children

Yang cannot walk due to polio as an infant. She was abandoned by her parents at the age of four, and grew up in a state-owned orphanage.

Yang’s childhood tragedy is not unique in China. Almost all of China’s abandoned children have disabilities.

Despite the country’s rapid economic growth, welfare experts say China lacks an adequate social safety net. Many parents simply cannot afford medical care for their disabled children.

MORE: ‘They don’t deserve this kind of life:’ Meet China’s abandoned children

Preparing for the Thanksgiving rush.

Most abandoned children with disabilities have no job prospects or future to look forward to – a harsh reality in China that motivated American couple Keith and Cheryl Wyse to start the charity bakery Bread of Life back in 2008.

The bakery trains and employs disabled adults with bone diseases, all of whom were orphaned as children.

Through an introduction, Yang joined in 2011 as full-time staff, and learned to make bread and pies from scratch.

She had no knowledge of western baking when she joined.

‘I started to love baking’

“At the beginning it was difficult for me, especially when it comes to the measurements of ingredients – something I’ve never dealt with before,” Yang tells CNN. “But gradually I started to love baking.”

At Thanksgiving, Grace thinks she’s most grateful to Bread of Life for giving her her very first job.

“Before coming here, I was lost and confused, I didn’t know what to expect for the future. In the bakery, I learned to be independent.”

Looking ahead, Yang hopes to one day start her own bakery and start a family. “I grew up without parents, so I want to give my future children the love I never had.”