Exciting news from the Kneading Conference, based in Skowhegan — a new project to bring bread-baking workshops to Maine schools through a portable oven and baking trailer:
QUIMBY FOUNDATION AWARDS $48,000 GRANT: Great excitement in Skowhegan! Thanks to the abundant generosity of the Quimby Family Foundation, the Kneading Conference will soon accomplish a long-awaited goal of making educational bread-baking workshops available to school children in Maine. The plan is to engage children’s minds by way of their taste buds. With each mouthful of warm bread made from grains they milled and baked in the heat of a fire they built, students will absorb a lesson in the science of yeast and the relevance of local agriculture.
The Barden family, owners of Maine Wood Heat, will be commissioned to design and build the portable oven and baking trailer that will bring the workshop to schools. When not on the road, the oven will be parked at the Somerset Grist Mill in Skowhegan and used for community events and fundraisers.
The Quimby Family Foundation was formed in 2004 by Roxanne Quimby, a businesswoman, environmentalist, and philanthropist. The mission of her family foundation is to advance wilderness values and to increase access to the arts throughout Maine.
*Photograph from the 2010 Kneading Conference.