A 2021 retrospective for Bread & Justice
A year of growing community, self reflection & so much bread.
Good morning bread friends,
I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and is enjoying the holiday season. It felt weird this morning to put up a listing for our final pre-orders of sourdough for 2021. But if anyone wants to close out their year with a fresh loaf of bread you can order now for Thursday pick up.
What a wild year it has been.
Next month Iβm going to do some reflecting on all of the financial contributions that we made in 2021 and the collective impact that this community has had together. In a similar spirit of transparency βΒ today I want to share some subscriber & customer insights with you all and just thank you for showing up in the ways that you do.
As of this morning, this email newsletter has a total of 631 people subscribed to it. Iβm grateful to each and every one of you for being a part of this community. It is an honor to get to share my thoughts with you as I reflect on bread-making, the fight for justice, and the many organizations that are working to make a more just society.
I really hesitated to start this newsletter project a little over a year ago. I have never had the discipline to write on a schedule, nor have I ever had the confidence to share my inner thoughts like this in writing. Despite being a rather public person for a number of years, it feels like a new experience for me to be emotionally reflective and vulnerable in the way that a writer can be with readers. Thank you for being engaged (to the tune of 55% email open rates). Thank you for all the feedback this past year. And thank you for sharing this newsletter and inviting your friends to subscribe. This community and our impact only grows because of people like you spreading the word.
In addition to this growing community of readers, I especially want to thank the large local community of folks that have chosen to buy bread from me. In the past year, Iβve made a little over 1,500 loaves of bread and sold them to almost 300 customers in the area. I say in βthe areaβ because saying βacross Madisonβ would be understating the awesome lengths that folks will go for bread made by hand with local ingredients. Customers have traveled from Middleton, Verona, Cross plains, McFarland, Stoughton, and Oregon all to pick up bread. I have one customer who routinely brings bread to her 75 year old father in Rewey, WI - who lives on a farm that is certainly closer to Dubuque, Iowa than it is to Madison. And another customer who lives in NYC but has family in Madison and always gets bread when she is in town.
I canβt express the joy that I feel having the opportunity to make something with my hands that nourishes people in my community. It brings a smile to my face to know that people are including my bread in the meals that they are sharing with friends and family. On top of that, it is a real delight to know that people appreciate buying bread from Bread & Justice so much that they are willing to travel to get their hands on it.
Because of all of you, Iβm able to continue to donate 100% of my profits to organizations working to make our society more just.
I hope to keep doing this for a long time, and I hope to be able to increase our impact over time. Along those lines, there are cool plans in the works for 2022. I canβt wait to be able to share those with you all in due time. But for nowβ¦ from the bottom of my heart, Iβm just so thankful to you all for showing up. In the midst of this crazy year, I have been incredibly heartened to know that there are people out there that give a crap about the same issues in society that I do and are actively looking for ways to take action to do something to make the world that our kids will grow up in a little better.
I love you all.
Cheers,
Mo
P.S. Knowing that there are many new people on this newsletter that have joined over the past year⦠here are links to a few of the issues/weeks that seemed to really resonate with folks.
Bread stuff:
Justice stuff:
Melβs writings: