Spread the Bread celebrates 3rd Annual Million Bread Bake event!
Break out the flour and get ready to bake your favorite bread to honor a hero or help someone in need. That's what thousands of families, schools, churches, communities and youth organizations around the world will be doing from September 11 until December 31, 2009, as they participate in the 3rd annual Million Bread Bake Collectively, they'll try to bake a million breads for others. Can you help?
What began with a pinch of inspiration and a childhood memory of daily baked Irish bread has become, Spread the Bread, the fastest growing, grassroots, bread-spreading community outreach program on the planet. The organization inspires the world to use the gift of bread, the universal sign of peace and fellowship, as an offering of hope, inspiration and gratitude. "We have found so many bread angels in this world, willing to bake bread for others." said 11 year old Madison Kiefer, who began baking and spreading bread when she was big enough to sit on a stool and stir.
The concept is simple. Anyone and everyone is asked to bake a favorite loaf of bread-any kind of bread- then wrap the bread in love and personality and add a special note so that the bread is ready to be offered to honor a hero or to help someone in need. The project is unique in a fast-paced world, calling people back into the warmth and calm of their kitchens to think about their community, their world, as well as define a need or a hero. The project also gets people thinking: B-R-E-A-D.
Since its official inception 8 years ago, Spread the Bread has grown in epic proportions; from a few hundred loaves of bread spread in the small community of Wayland, Massachusetts, to tens of thousands of loaves spread across the United States, and thanks to organizations like the Girl Scouts, spreading as far as Japan and South Korea. Sometimes breads are collected through community/church bread drives, other times it's a classroom project, a service learning initiative of a youth or scouting organization or families or individuals baking bread and spreading it on their own. Beneficiaries of this bread include: policemen, firefighters, veterans, soldiers, teachers, coaches, the elderly, the sick, the homeless, the hungry, those in need of a smile and neighbors, family and friends.
To encourage participation in the Million Bread Bake, the Spread the Bread organization's website is a "how to" road map, filled with Spread the Bread Starter Kits, event ideas, event happenings, poems, recipes, and a service learning curriculum so that youth can earn "patches" for their bread service. Spread the Bread has even created a bread project to help and honor our furry friends, called Spread the Biscuits.
This year, the 9/11 Memorial Bread Project will be a featured bread initiative thoughout the Million Bread Bake. To get your community or organization more involved or to ask any questions e-mail the organization at: info@spreadthebread.org
Last year you helped to spread over 700,000 breads for others....let's bake it a million!!!
