Once Julie Allen slides a bread pan onto the oven racks, she sees the love she puts into her bread rise with each minute. Loaf by loaf, she hopes to help those facing hardship and food insecurity.
Allen is the founder and organizer of the #Bakewithme Project, a network of volunteer bakers who make loaves monthly and drop them off at Athens area nonprofits, homeless shelters and churches. Volunteers each month contribute about 30 loaves to each organization, meaning at least 30 families every month get homemade bread from the heart.
“It impacts the people that we serve because it’s sort of unexpected. I’ve referred to it as a bread hug. I think anytime we receive homemade bread from someone, it just warms your heart and hopefully warms their stomach,” Allen said. “I like that it’s kind of anonymous. We’re taking part and making something good happen but, it’s also really void of self.”
Allen, who grew up in Gwinnett County, earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Georgia and now considers Athens home. As a young adult, Allen started baking as a hobby to be in the kitchen and to serve people.
“I definitely found that my favorite thing was using my creativity, making a product so it was, like, task-oriented,” Allen said. “And then giving it away and hopefully having people like it.”
The artistry that Allen found in the kitchen propelled her from working as a financial copywriter into a new career and into a new way to serve the community. Winning a company baking contest with mango bread gave her the inkling that she had the ability to bake for others. But the three weeks she spent unemployed in 2016, after a restaurant she worked at had closed, was the determining factor.
She filled every day with a new creative project. Toward the end, she baked a loaf of whole wheat bread for a friend, and that loaf revealed a passion specifically for bread.
Allen honed her knowledge of pastries and bread at Independent Baking Co. in Athens before starting her own business in 2018, RISE Baking Co., which allowed her to work and bake bread from home to sell at farmer’s markets and through her website. During the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2021, Allen knew she wanted to initiate some kind of volunteer community to give back. She came up with the #Bakewithme Project name and then had to figure out the logistics.