On the last Saturday near Seattle, Cheryl Ewaldsen pulled three golden brake wheat bread out of her kitchen oven.
The scented oat bread was not intended for your table, but for a local food bench that was increasingly struggling with hunger and high costs for food.
“I am very happy that someone is going to someone and that they will do 10 sandwiches,” said Ewaldsen, 75, a retired human resource director of the university.
Ewaldsen is a volunteer at Community-Loaves, a non-profit organization in Seattle that was paired with bakers with food supply chambers during the Covid 19 pandemy-and did not stop.
Since 2020, the organization under the direction of Katherine Kehrli, the former dean of a cooking school, has donated more than 200,000 bread to fresh bread and around 220,000 energy cookies to food banks. They come from a network of almost 900 bakers in four states – Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho – and represent one of the largest of these efforts in the country.
In the middle of the federal financing of food aid, which was recently financed by the indigent and rising food prices, the demand for the donations of the group of nutritious baked goods is greater than ever, said Kehrli.
“Most of our food banks don’t get a donation from wholemeal sandwich bread,” she said. “If we ask what we could do better, just say: ‘Bring us more.'”
Anti-hunger experts expect more needs
The bread from Ewaldsen goes to the nearby Edmonds Food Bank, where the customer list has risen from 350 households to almost 1,000 in the past three years, according to the program manager Lester Almanza.
According to the Feeding America, a hunger relief organization, more than 50 million people receive non -profit food aid nationwide.
Anti-hunger experts say that they expect the latest federal legislation to put food aid for indigent foods. The Congress’s household office estimated that the tax and expenditure cuts would have dismantled the Republicans in July that 3 million people would not qualify for food brands that are also known as SNAP advantages.
However, measuring the effects could soon be more complex after the US farm department recently stated that it would hire an annual report on hunger in America and explained that it was superfluous, steep and politically “subjectively liberal food”. After 30 years, the report 2024 published on October 22 will be the last, said the agency.
“The termination of the data acquisition will not end hunger, it will only become a hidden crisis that is easier to ignore and more difficult to treat,” said Crystal Fitzsimons, President of the Food Research & Action Center, an advocacy group.
According to Almanza, federal financing for its food bank has dropped by at least 10% this year, which means that every donation helps.
“It is something that many people rely on,” he said.
Food bank bread are often processed high
These include people like Chris Redfearn (42) and his wife Melanie Rodriguez-Redfearn (43), who last spring to a food bench in Everett, Washington, turned to find work after moving to the area. They had to extend their savings until she started a recent position this month, teaching history on a local college. Chris Redfearn, who has been working in business for decades, is still looking for.
“The pantry helps a week with 40 to 80 US dollars,” he said. “We could stay afloat.”
The couple was a surprise, the couple said to find from joint bread in a pantry. Often excess bread that has been sent by grocery stores includes highly processed white bread or sweets that were donated near their drain or sales data.
The breads are available in three varieties – honey oats, whole grain and sunflowers rye – which are all made from whole grains and minimally processed ingredients.
“They make it really healthy and fiber,” said Chris Redfearn. “It ahms the most health -conscious breads that are out there.”
Many food banks accept non -donated baked goods
The idea of donating homemade bread came to Kehrli (61) during the pandemic when she was sold by her job at the busy cooking academy in Seattle.
“I love baking and just triggered one idea: would it be possible for us to help from home and to get an important valuable diet for our food banks?” She remembered.
Many food supply chambers do not accept or distribute any donations from homemade baked goods. Feeding America warns the individual bakers of the practice and says: “Since food banks cannot confirm how their baked goods were made or their ingredients, they cannot be donated.”
However, the rules of the Ministry of Health vary depending on the state, Kehrli learned. In Washington and the other three states, in which community brown bread is now busy, bread is one of the few foods that can be donated from a home kitchen through a program.
“We would not be able to donate pudding cake. We would not be able to donate a lasagna,” said Kehrli. “But bread is considered safe. Everything that is completely baked and does not require cooling.”
Nevertheless, the bakers of the Community bread have to follow approved recipes for bread and two types of energy cookies. You get flour from shared sources and baking and baking and deliver a schedule used twice a month.
The bakers buy their own supplies and donate the costs for the ingredients and their time. Most make a few breads per baking meeting before delivering them to local “hubs”, where other volunteers collect the bread and transport them to the food banks.
The bakers range from former experts to beginners. A hearty website with recipes and instructions that are backstops in every step, said Kehrli.
Baking the bread is satisfactory on several levels, said Ewaldsen, who has donated almost 800 bread in less than two years. Part of it is to meet the physical need for food, but a part is also to address the spiritual hunger for connection with neighbors.
“It is the opportunity for me to bake something and share something with others in the community where you don’t necessarily need to know who I am, but you know that there is a community that loves you and takes care of her,” she said.
While such feelings are true and admirable, anti-hunger experts emphasize that individual donations cannot adequately take state services for the difficulties of the Americans.
“It is wonderful that our communities act in this way,” said Gina Plata-Nino from Food Research & Action Center. “But it’s a bread bread. It will feed a person – and millions are in line.”
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