Nothing Was the Same

Update: How much have we raised to fight racism & What have we put into motion?

Earlier this week Bakers Against Racism shared (with their tens of thousands of followers) the thank you video that I sent to them. That was very cool!

But what I really want to do is thank my community again. It has blown me away how generous so many of you have been.

As I've talked about before… leading up to the election, I decided to embark on a little project to fight racism and protect democracy. Right here in Madison, Wisconsin we joined a movement of bakers across the country called Bakers Against Racism. What this meant was - I decided to take the sourdough bread that I had been making and giving away each week, and I began to sell it as a fundraiser. This was the first time I got the courage to sell my bread, and the explicit purpose was to donate all of the proceeds to organizations fighting to protect our democracy and fighting against racism and injustice in American life. This community stepped up in a big way – and caused me to need to quickly learn to increase my production capacity from baking just 4 loaves a week to 30 loaves a week.

In just a few weeks, together we raised $889.00 and donated all of it to the ACLU of Wisconsin & Black Voters Matter.

Here is an example of the work that your generosity supported during this election: 

On Election Day, ACLU of WI worked in coalition with several other nonprofit organizations to run a statewide roving election observer program with several hundred volunteers, and they had a team of over 60 volunteer attorneys who help troubleshoot calls to the Election Protection hotline and resolve problems to ensure people could vote safely. 

Black Voters Matter, and their non-partisan voter mobilization efforts organized black activists to coordinate bus tours, phone banks, text messages and letter writing campaigns in Georgia and elsewhere with the explicit goal of increasing black voter turnout and combatting voter suppression.  

All the while, we elected a new President and Vice-President to lead this country away from the racism and voter suppression that the present administration has spent the past 4 years actively dialing up.

While I’m currently taking a short break from bread sales… you’ve definitely put something into motion. Right now I’m preparing for an exciting project that is going to stretch my baking capacity even further as I seek to directly feed some of the most vulnerable in our our community. I look forward to sharing more info on this as soon as I can.

Also, you can expect an update from me soon on my future as it relates to selling more bread & further supporting justice work.

I’d love it if you reply to let me know anything else you’d like to learn about or hear from me on in the future.

Cheers, 
Mo Cheeks

P.S. - Don’t forget to tell your friends about this community. It would mean a lot to me if you would share this newsletter with anyone who might be passionate about bread & justice :)