On the last Saturday, near Seattle, Cheryl Evaldsen pulled three gold bread from wheat bread from her kitchen oven.
Fragrant bread with oatmeal was intended not for its table, but for the local food bank to distribute it over families, more and more often struggling with hunger and High cost of productsField
“I am simply very excited by this, knowing that it will go to anyone, and they are going to do, for example, 10 sandwiches,” said 75 -year -old Evaldsen, 75 years old, retired retired director.
Evaldsen – volunteer with Public breadA non-profit organization in Seattle, which began to combine home bakers with food pantries during the Covid-19-19 pandemic and did not stop.
Since 2020, the organization, headed by Katherine Kerley, the former dean of the culinary school, donated more than 200,000 bread bread and about 220,000 energy liver for food cans. They are from a network of almost 900 bakers in four states – Washington, Oregon, California and Aidaho – and are one of the largest such efforts in the country.
Now, among Reducing federal financing For help in food Growth of food pricesAccording to Kerley, there is more demand for donations of nutritious baking in the group than when.
“Most of our food banks do not receive any donations of bread with sandwich sandwich sandwiches,” she said. “When we ask what we can do better, they simply say:“ Bring us more. ”
According to the manager of the Lester Lester program, the Evaldsen bread goes to the nearest Edmonds food bank, where the client’s list has increased from 350 households to almost 1000 people.
Throughout the country, more than 50 million people The year receives charitable food assistance, reports American, an organization to assist hunger.
Experts to combat the hunter say that they expect the need to grow, since the recent federal legislation sharply reduces food assistance to the poor. The budget department of the congress assessed that Tax account and cost reduction Republicans muscular through Congress in July mean 3 million people will not apply for food couponsAlso known as Snap Pencess.
However, the measurement of exposure can be more difficult after the US Department of Agriculture recently stated that it would stop Annual report About hunger in America, saying that it was excessive, expensive and politicized “Subjective liberal food.” The agency reported that after 30 years, the 2024 report, which will be published on October 22, would be the last.
“The end of the data collection will not put an end to hunger, this will make it only with a hidden crisis that is easier to ignore and more difficult to solve,” Kritsimons, President of Crystal Fitzsimons, President of Food Studies. AND The center of actions, the propaganda group, says in their statement.
Almanza said that federal financing of its food bank fell by at least 10% this year, which means that every donation helps.
“This is what many people rely on,” he said.
This includes people such as Chris Redfirn, 42 years old, and his wife Melanie Rodriguez-ledfirn, 43 years old, who turned to the food bank in Everett, Washington, last spring after moving to the district to find work. They had to stretch their savings until she began a new position of history of history at the local college this month. Chris Redfirn, who has been working in business for decades, is still looking.
“The food pantry helps to save from 40 to 80 dollars weekly,” he said. “We were able to keep ourselves afloat.”
According to the couple, the search for homemade bread from public loaf in the food pantry was a surprise. Often, excess bread sent by grocery stores includes highly processed white bread or sweets donated near the expiration of the validity or date of sale.
Bread is in three varieties – oatmeal honey, whole wheat and rye sunflower – all are made of whole grains and minimally processed ingredients.
“They make it really useful and fibrous,” said Chris Redfirn. “It imitates most breads for health that are there.”
The concept of donation of home bread came to 61-year-old Kerley during the pandemic when it was moved from work in a busy Culinary Academy of Seattle.
“I like to bake, and the idea is simply caused: is it possible for us to help from our house and get important valuable meals for our food banks?” She remembered.
Many food pantries do not accept and do not distribute donations from home pastries. America’s feeding warns individual bakers from practice, saying: “Since food banks cannot confirm how your baking or their ingredients was made, they cannot be sacrificed.”
But the rules of the Department of Health vary depending on the state, Kerley recognized. In Washington and in the three other states where public bread is now working, bread is one of the few products that can be sacrificed from home cuisine as part of a program like them.
“We will not be able to donate pies with custard. We will not be able to sacrifice lasagni, ”Kerley said. “But bread is considered safe. Everything that is completely swem and does not require cooling. ”
Nevertheless, public bread bakees should follow the approved recipes for bread and two types of energy cookies. They receive flour from common sources, bake and deliver the overall schedule twice a month.
Bakers buy their own supplies, donating the cost of ingredients, as well as their time. Most of them make several breads for a baking session before delivering them to local “centers”, where other volunteers collect bread and deliver it to food banks.
Bigs vary from former professionals to beginners. Corley said that a reliable website with recipes and practical video retroactively.
The baking of bread satisfies at several levels, said Evaldsen, who donated almost 800 bread in less than two years. This partially solves the physical need for food, but part also turns to spiritual hunger for communication with neighbors.
“For me, this is an opportunity to bake something and share something with others in a society where they don’t have to know who I am, but they know that there is a community that loves and cares about them,” she said.
While such feelings are sincere and amazing, experts in combating the hunter emphasize that individual donations cannot occupy the proper funded public services to fight the Americans.
“It is wonderful that our communities act in this way,” Gina said a Plata Nino from a study of food products AND The center of action. “But this is a loaf of bread. This will feed one person – and there are millions in line. ”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Department of Scientific Education of Howard Hughes and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. AP bears sole responsibility for all content.
