Dads and Dough Anonymous

It’s five o’clock on a Sunday morning. Do you know where your father is? If you’re me, then you know exactly where he is: in the kitchen preparing the dough for his homemade bread. My dad spends every Sunday morning this way. It’s a process that takes all day, a process I don’t entirely understand, but I know that by 3 o’clock in the afternoon, my dad will have three fresh loaves of bread from the oven.

At least one of those loaves finds its way to the home of someone in the community, be it someone in need or just someone who my dad thinks deserves a smile. Service has always been a huge part of my family. Before I was old enough to do service projects on my own, my mom helped start a new organization: “Mommy and Me Missions”. The goal of Mommy and Me was to expose children to serving in the community alongside their parents. With Mommy and Me, I participated in projects like organizing cans at the food pantry or sorting clothing to be donated to the homeless. By the time I was in middle school, my father started his own organization: Off the Egg. My dad loves cooking, but baking bread is not where he stops. My father and his friends take their Big Green Egg grills out into the community, serving food at fundraisers or my...