Seattle Home Bakers Rise To Fill A “Knead”

• There has been a surge in demand for bread at a local Seattle food bank during the pandemic.
• Seattle’s Community Loaves group, composed of hundreds of home bakers, donated 1,300 loaves of homemade bread to the food bank.
• The effort has not only provided food but has given members the opportunity to bond and share their blessings.

---

This pandemic has brought out the instinct of humans to protect each other and provide for each other’s needs. Where there is a lack in a community, members fill the need. The scope of giving ranges from little girls and boys contributing through lemon stands, bakers’ sales, and breaking their piggy banks to adults leaving huge tips and setting up fund drives.

People have proven that giving does not hurt but actually feels good.

In Seattle, a local food bank has just received 1,300 loaves of bread from Community Loaves, a group of more than 500 home bakers. The fresh supply equips the food bank Hopelink, to fill the surge in demand for bread during the pandemic.

Community Loaves is led by college administrator and avid baker Katherine Kehrli.  She said the group has formulated its own recipe for honey oat loaf bread that has been shared with its members. The recipe produces 4 loaves of bread. Members are encouraged to retain one and donate the other three.  This way, volunteer bakers are thanked, at the same time giving them a chance to pay it forward.

Kehrli said, “(This project) has restored my faith in the collective good that we can actually do. And it restores my faith that we can be more self-determined even in the face of the pandemic.”

Matthew Campbell, the associate director of food programs at Hopelink, says the donation reminds him of his childhood and his grandma who used to make the best homemade bread. “That reminds me of this. You can see smiles through masks. You still can. You can see the eyes go up. (With) 600, 700 loaves of bread now, that’s 600, 700 smiles.”

The home baking not only gives members the opportunity to share but also an opportunity to bond with other family members.

As home baker Sarah Gannholm narrates, “I haven’t been able to see my dad for several months, so I got this idea that I would get my dad to buy a KitchenAid (mixer) and buy some bread pans.”

Her dad is not a baker but they get together on Zoom and do the baking.  They not only get to bond but give his dad a chance to give back to (the) community “in a way that he’s never done in his life.”

The Community Loaves group has already donated thousands of dinner rolls for Thanksgiving and nearly 4,000 pecan finger cookies for the winter holidays.

“We’re Breader Together” really sums it up beautifully for you, Community Loaves. Thank you! 

Source: TODAY