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For The Washington Post

Virginia Oliver

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Jared Scratch/Greener Village

Monday mornings at 9 a.m., Gary Farrah ties on an apron, washes his hands and spends two hours making and kneading dough, then forming it into plump little bread loaves.

Farrah, 60, had never baked bread until about a year ago, when he heard about <a href="https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/bread-mondays-bake-bread-for-the-food-bank-tickets-793152148427" target=_blank>Bread Mondays,</a> a community program that helps feed those in need in Fredericton, New Brunswick in Canada.

Anyone can sign up to learn how to make homemade bread at Fredericton’s <a href="https://www.greenervillage.ca/about-us/" target=_blank>Greener Village</a> food bank. Volunteers chat around a flour-coated table while they make about 200 loaves of bread on Mondays, then they get to take home a fresh golden-brown loaf for themselves.

Farrah said kneading dough is therapeutic both physically and emotionally.

“Yes, it’s relaxing — I do enjoy the feeling of my hands in the dough,” he said. “But I also like knowing that I’m doing something that will help somebody else to have something delicious. The more bread I bake, the better I feel.”

Greener Village CEO Alex Boyd came up with the idea of teaching people to bake during the covid pandemic.

“We taped a bread-making class and put it on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/greenervillage" target=_blank>Facebook</a> as a way to get people more engaged with food,” he said. “Then last January, we decided it would be a good idea to do classes in person and bake bread for our food clients who need it.”

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The bread, which is made with flour, water, oil, salt, sugar and yeast,<b> </b>is baked in the food bank’s industrial ovens for 25<b> </b>minutes, then set out for Greener Village’s 2,000 client families, along with other perishable and nonperishable food, such as fresh produce, peanut butter, milk and canned goods.

Boyd, 39, said the response to the program was so great that Greener Village now offers two bread-baking sessions every Monday, plus a class on Tuesday nights.

About 10 volunteers show up each time and are taught the basics by food bank chef and kitchen manager Yves Dechaine, who adapted one of his grandmother’s old recipes for the project.

“She taught me when I was young, and I now want to pass the tradition of bread-making along, just as any teacher would,” said Dechaine, 47.

“A sense of community is what I hope they take away,” he said. “I hope it’s filling their hearts, because it’s certainly filling mine.”

Volunteers bake more than 800 loaves every month, Boyd said, with a goal of giving away 10,000 loaves this year. Last year they gave away about 5,000. People who want to contribute but don’t have time to help with mixing, kneading and baking can donate flour and yeast to Bread Mondays, he said.

“The main ingredient is love,” Boyd said, noting that food insecurity is <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/75-006-x/2023001/article/00013-eng.htm#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20families%20experiencing,%2D%20in%202019%20(17%25)." target=_blank>on the rise in Canada</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/25/food-insecurity-usda-hunger/" target=_blank>in the United States</a>.

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A U.S. Department of Agriculture report <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/10/26/1208760054/food-insecurity-families-struggle-hunger-poverty#:~:text=The%20report%20found%20that%2044.2,nearly%2045%20percent%20from%202021" target=_blank>released last year</a> found that more than 44 million Americans live in households experiencing hunger. In 2022, New Brunswick had the <a href="https://proof.utoronto.ca/resource/household-food-insecurity-in-canada-2022/" target=_blank>second highest rate of food insecurity </a>among Canada’s 10 provinces, according to PROOF Food Insecurity Policy Research.

Boyd said he would love to see Bread Mondays take off in other communities. New Brunswick’s <a href="https://tj.news/fredericton-west/food-bank-holds-bread-baking-classes-to-help-stock-shelves" target="_blank">Telegraph-Journal</a> recently reported about the popularity of the free bread project in Fredericton, which has a population of 66,000. About 22 percent of the population in New Brunswick is food insecure, Boyd said.

“Teaching people to bake bread has a long-term advantage in the fight to combat the rising trend of hunger,” he said. “We’re giving away something freshly baked, with no preservatives or additives. And there’s nothing like the taste of hot homemade bread.”

Bread Mondays is also a client favorite, said Greg Doucet, senior manager of services at Greener Village.

“The folks coming to us are disenfranchised to some extent, either homeless or barely making ends meet,” he said. “But this is about more than just the bread. People often tell us that smelling fresh bread takes them back to happier times and memories of family.”

That’s what happened to Dewayne Hamilton the first time he picked up a loaf at Greener Village one year ago. Hamilton, 52, said he was homeless when he was younger, and he has relied on the food bank to supplement his grocery budget for almost 20 years.

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This year, he decided to sign up as a volunteer and help bake bread for others who are facing hard times.

“This is my way of paying back, plus I’m relearning a skill I never should have lost the ability to do,” Hamilton said. “My grandmother taught me to cook and bake. In her kitchen, you had to help out. There was no escape.”

His thoughts were with his grandmother when he rolled up his sleeves in the Greener Village kitchen.

“It took me right back — it was like a refresher course,” he said. “A loaf of bread makes a difference to a lot of people. Without these folks, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Volunteer Amy Chenard said she looks forward to spending cold January mornings kneading dough in a warm kitchen.

“I get out of the house, I get to socialize with other people, and I get to bake, which I love to do,” she said. “I grew up in a home where my parents taught us you help out when you can.”

“Knowing this program is helping to feed so many people makes my heart happy,” she added.

For Farrah, his Monday mornings as a baker have an added benefit: he now takes his skills home, and his wife is impressed.

“You could also say she’s amused, because she never thought she’d see the day when I’d be doing something like this,” Farrah said. “We have a bread machine at home, but since I started baking, we haven’t used it.”

“I like to think that I can bake it better,” he said.

Cathy Free is a human interest reporter who specializes in stories of humanity. She has written for The Washington Post's Inspired Life section since 2018. 

Cathy Free

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Canadian community bakes bread every Monday to stock food bank shelves

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