Donating baked goods?

[JAS_OH1]

So I have a lot of flour and a lot of sourdough starter on hand and I was thinking about baking bread and other baked goods to give away to soup kitchens and places like that. I looked online and there is a great organization that allows home bakers of all skill levels to donate their time (they provide the supplies) after some brief training but they only service out in the NW US (California, Washington, etc.). I realize there may be some regulations for larger organizations that don't allow donations from home bakers for obvious reasons, but my plan is to call around next week to some smaller community soup kitchens and churches who might be happy to take bread and such made in someone's kitchen. I am pretty sure my local food bank won't take home-baked goods but I am going to call them and maybe they know of places that will (homeless shelter perhaps).

Has anyone else ever done something like this in your state/region/country? How did that work out?

 

[TastyReuben]

Yes, actually, but it wasn't people in any kind of distress, and I'd have never thought of it without my coworker friend prompting.

He knew I baked bread (and other stuff), because I'd brought some to work, and I found out that he cooked for a couple of different live theater groups in Cincy. Apparently, on performance nights, it's not uncommon for theater groups to ask for volunteers to provide their time an effort to feed the actors and crew. I never knew that.

Don actually managed the whole thing, designing the menu, doing nearly all the cooking, and overseeing the serving, and he mentioned that one thing he'd done where bread was concerned was to just buy cheap supermarket French/Italian loaves, but thought it might be a nice touch to have actual home-baked bread, and would I be interested?

Sure!

I didn't have to make bread for every night's performance, but usually just one or two. What was fun was that he'd develop a menu in line with whatever the play being presented was, and so I got into the habit of choosing different breads that would work with that. I ended up not just doing it because it seemed like a good cause (I love live theater - a lot more than movies/TV), but I got to where I really looked forward to it.