Since the beginning of 2022, Dr. Maya Georgieva, trained Bread Therapist and psychotherapist at Sunstone Counseling in Washington, DC (USA), presented Bread Therapy at two international counseling (therapy) conferences, and the unique methods have been greeted with great interest. The first online sessions led by Maya had various participants joining from their home kitchens, with lots of sharing and emotion, touching personal stories and inspirations, all joined by the power of breadmaking to help us calm down, focus, and better connect to ourselves and all around us. Maya and Nadezhda, the Bread Houses Network Founder, will be further cooperating on introducing Bread Therapy in the United States and beyond through lectures at conferences and university settings. May we all connect more, beyond words, through bread making!
On the American West coast, in the San Diego area, Crumbassador Sybil Leon is very actively engaging through Bread Therapy various institutions, organizations, and people in need in her community and beyond. Her team regularly gives out bags of their BREAD Encounters overnight bread mix to those who signed up for it, and we encouraged them to bake and “share the loaf” with someone in the community and share how their gift of bread impacted both the recipient and the baker. Some people prepared a special breakfast with home-baked loaves for a local Women’s Shelter.
At the Blossom Valley Elementary School, Sibyl had a wonderful bread encounter with 3rd graders who also got to bake and “share the loaf” with a local food bank. What a surprise it was when the kids compared the freshly milled flour with the store bought flour! Bread Encounters also held a Solidarity Bread bake with members of the community to provide 80 loaves of bread to a local food ministry specifically for seniors who are dealing with food insecurities.
BREAD Encounters recently became part of starting up a collaborative bread market at a local brew house. Sybil teamed up with a long-established Nonprofit named Via International which promotes sustainable community development while connecting people across borders. The first market on November 22, 2021, was quite a success BREAD Encounters invited the market goers to participate in a “Community Flour Drawing” (in the spirit of the Theater of Crumbs) with the theme of gratitude. A flour drawing is fleeting, just like the moments in our lives, and it is important to capture those moments and express them in a beautiful, touching community flour art piece: read more here https://www.breadencounters.com/post/community-flour-drawing-power .
For 2022, Sibyl is very excited about her application for the AARP 2022 Challenge grant with The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The project would include 4 community events stretched out from June to September 2022, one of them will be and event “Breaking Bread At the Border” with people from both sides of the Mexican/American border – inspiring opportunities opening up of for sharing the Theater of Crumbs method to bring people together across and on both sides of the fence.