It was during the COVID pandemic that Alex Boyd, the CEO of Greener Village in Fredericton, New Brunswick, came up with the idea of teaching people to bake bread.

“We taped a bread-making class and put it on Facebook 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.”

Greener Village Fredericton launched the expanded “Share the Loaf” in January for people who wanted to take part but weren’t available during the day. It now offers two bread-baking sessions every Monday, plus a class on Tuesday nights.

Each time, about 10 volunteers 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.“A sense of community is what I hope they take away,” he says. “I hope it’s filling their hearts, because it’s certainly filling mine.”

Volunteers make about 200 loaves of bread on Mondays. The bread, which is made with flour, water, oil, salt, sugar and yeast, is baked in the food bank’s industrial ovens for 25 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.

Volunteers bake more than 800 loaves every month. Last year they gave away about 5,000; this year, they want to give away 10,000 loaves. 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.

“The main ingredient is love,” says Boyd.. 

About 22% of the population in New Brunswick is food insecure, Boyd said. In 2022, New Brunswick had the second highest rate of food insecurity 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. “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.”

Sources:

Food bank holds bread-baking classes to help stock shelves Telegraph Journal, Jan 14 2024

They gather to bake bread each week, then give away thousands of loaves Washington Post, Jan 26 2024

Greener Village website

Cover: Yves Dechaine with a batch of hot bread made by community volunteers. (Jared Scratch/Greener Village)