A “divine download” that came six years ago to Morris resident Joan van der Linde during the early days of COVID-19 has grown into a community project, touching many with free loaves of bread baked in bread machines in her kitchen.
The passion project is funded fully by monetary, time, and ingredient donations from community members and local organizations. Van der Linde takes care of the rest, having baked 6,000 loaves at The Bread Basket since March 23, 2020.
She celebrated the milestone last month with two events: sharing her story and loaf 5,999 at Morris Bigway on March 22, and breaking loaf 6,000 on a Facebook livestream March 23, a culmination of six years of blessing her community.
“It was March 22, 2020 when I asked God how I could bring joy into this world. The next day I baked a loaf, had Troy Hoffman throw it up on social media, and I never, ever in a million years guessed that I would be here still carrying on.”
Van der Linde records milestones, numbers, people, and newspaper articles in two scrapbooks.
“It’s really cool to flip through the papers and see how many people have grabbed hold of this project. It has become a community project,” she said. “At 2,000 loaves, I had six machines going. Now I have up to 15 machines going.”
Van der Linde has a rack of eight bread machines in her kitchen, with additional ones scattered throughout her house.
“One of the most amazing stories came about with this rack of machines,” she shared, “I had a dream two years ago: five men renovating my kitchen.”
Within weeks of that, she had men tackling the fire hazard of too many extension cords by putting in extra power. The number of men in her kitchen? Five.
“I could talk for hours about all the stories of how people have grabbed a hold of loaves of bread and have blessed their families and friends with these loaves,” van der Linde said. “As we look at loaf number 6,000, I’ve been praying and asking God what to do with that special loaf.”
Loaf 5,000 was used for communion last year. For loaf 6,000, van der Linde was guided by the book of 1st Corinthians and what Jesus did when he was with his disciples at the Last Supper.
“He took the loaf of bread and he broke it and he gave thanks, saying, ‘This is my body.’ Jesus is the Bread of Life. I find it so unique that we are celebrating Easter and the death of Jesus on the cross and his resurrection for loaf 6,000.
“So many people have taken loaves and blessed others and I’m deeply grateful that I get to be part of administrating such a unique project.”
The milestones won’t come as fast in the future, as van der Linde hopes to work toward baking only 500 loaves of bread per year moving forward.
“People often ask how long I will carry on this project. It’s not a story that I could have written. So as long as ingredients are coming in and people want to take them to bless others, so it will keep going.”
The Bread Basket bread is shared within the Morris community at local organizations including the Red River Food Bank, but also reaches other hands in southern Manitoba through the ripple effect of locals sharing with loved ones.
Find the project online at The BREAD Basket on Facebook.
