Fancy and Delicious Baking Company

I'm a changemaker because I make gardens. I'm a change maker because I build clay ovens. I'm a changemaker because I don't just have ideas, but see them through. I try to push the envelope, and am constantly inspired by people who push more. I try to pass that energy on to people who aren't pushing yet. I volunteer in my community. I'm a changemaker because, even with the current odds, I believe change is possible.

I've traveled a bit, and there are few places for which I don't feel a fondness or connection. However, in Bulungula, South Africa, I learned that not all money-making is evil and that business can be a community supported venture. Unfortunately, travel isn't very green, but the people of Bulungula do as much as they can to offset this. Bulungula is a small village on the Wild Coast of South Africa, only accessible by footpath or 4 x 4. Overlooking the bay is a small hostel, owned and operated by the villagers themselves. The hostel is completely off the grid, with composting toilets and paraffin-heated showers. The food cooked at Bulungula is mostly grown in village gardens, and many villagers run workshops and activities on the side: canoeing, fishing, ‘women’s day,’ and horse-back riding. A village council decides what the profits are spent on, be it shoes, or cows, or the school. In few places have I felt so welcome; even as someone passing through, I was made to feel like I was part of the community.

I want to see people take food production into their own hands. I want food production to be localized, and rid of chemicals. And I want all of it, not just to reach, but to come from the people who are usually left out. I want it to come from everybody. I want everybody to be able to afford to eat healthy: urban soil remediation is possible, and where it’s not, there are porches and roofs. I want there to be chickens and goats in cities. The more people work outside, with their hands, the less time they will have for negativity and despair. The more time people spend in fresh air, and the less they will want to drive, the more they will appreciate their neighbors and their neighborhood stores, and the less they will buy unnecessary ‘stuff’. The environmental impact of an educated, involved community could, and will be huge.

I co-run a small bread-share program based on the east side of Buffalo. In the spring of 2009, a friend and I began building a clay oven in a neighborhood that remains beaten-down, and broken-up by the economic crisis in Buffalo, which predates the current, global one by more than fifty years. We bake bread for around 60 shareholders, and have plans to expand this summer. We also have plans to run bread-baking workshops, and oven building workshops (among other programs) in the city. I’ve been involved in community work in Buffalo since I moved here in 2004. I’m a member of PUSH Buffalo (People United for Sustainable Housing), and have worked on poverty and public school issues with CEJ (Coalition for Economic Justice).