When Cheryl Ewaldsen pulls golden loaves of whole wheat bread from her home oven near Seattle, she knows each one will make about ten sandwiches for families struggling with hunger and rising grocery costs. The retired university director is one of nearly 900 volunteers with Community Loaves, a nonprofit that pairs home bakers with food pantries to provide something most food banks desperately need but rarely receive: fresh, nutritious, homemade bread. Since starting during the pandemic, this remarkable organization has donated more than 200,000 loaves of wholesome bread and 220,000 energy cookies to food banks across Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho.
Founded by Katherine Kehrli, a former culinary school dean, Community Loaves addresses a crucial gap in food assistance by providing whole grain sandwich bread made with minimally processed ingredients rather than the highly processed white bread often donated near expiration dates. Volunteers buy their own ingredients, bake using approved recipes, and deliver twice monthly to local hubs where other volunteers transport the bread to food banks. With federal funding for food aid dropping and grocery prices rising, demand for these homemade donations has never been greater. This grassroots movement proves that ordinary people baking in their home kitchens can make an extraordinary difference in their communities, one fresh loaf at a time.
