20 | DECEMBER 23 • 2021 

I 

say this with the utmost respect, 
admiration and, perhaps most 
importantly, the permission of bakers 
Mindy Salzberg-Siegel, Denise Kalt and 
Barbara Wallace, when I suggest that 
they are three “kneady” women. They’ve 
earned that distinction 
having just spent the last 
10 months in their own 
kitchens kneading dough, 
baking, packaging and 
donating healthy breads to 
Detroit-area food pantries 
through their nonprofit 
Kneaded with Love.
The women though, 
along with more than 70 area volunteer 
bakers of homemade breads, are 

fulfilling a much-needed need of 
needing more kneaders. OK, enough of 
this half-baked word play. I’ll tell you 
how you can be of help (see sidebar), but 
first, some back story.
Mindy, Denise and Barbara — of 
Birmingham, Franklin and Huntington 
Woods respectively — have always 
enjoyed baking and cooking. Like for 
so many, the pandemic and resulting 
shutdowns in early 2020 found them 
preparing more meals at home. The 
three further honed their culinary 
skills by participating in Zingerman’s 
Bakehouse online baking and cooking 
classes. 
Also, Salzberg-Siegel, Kalt and Wallace 
are members of Congregation Shaarey 

Zedek (CSZ) and took advantage of 
Zoom challah baking classes offered 
by Rebecca Starr, CSZ’s rebbetzin and 
director of regional programs of the 
Shalom Hartman Institute, a leading 
center of Jewish thought and education 
serving Israel and North America. Starr 
has donated her baking skills, as well, to 
the Kneaded with Love cause.
After months of feeding family and 
friends, with plenty extra loaves to 
spare, the three women were struck by 
the desperation they were witnessing 
on pandemic news reports and began 
thinking about how their skill sets could 
contribute to the greater good of the 
community. 
“Every day on the news, we’re seeing 
people out of work and car lines backed 
up at food pantries,” Mindy said. Then, 
in January 2021, she caught a segment 
on NBC’s Today Show about food 
insecurity in our country that changed 
everything.
The network morning show featured 
a Seattle-based nonprofit called 
Community Loaves, “a grassroots 
bread brigade, baking and delivering 
homemade honey oat sandwich loaves 
in support of our overstretched food 
pantries.” The inspiration for Kneaded 
with Love was born.

GETTING IT OFF THE GROUND
In a matter of days, a letter of 
introduction about their charitable 
efforts and an appeal for volunteer 
bakers was sent to their personal 
contacts. Thanks to a robust response, 
Kneaded with Love was able to begin 
delivering fresh baked breads by the 
end of March and, twice a month there 
after, to two area food pantries — Open 

OUR COMMUNITY

Local nonprofit looks for volunteer bread bakers.

Volunteers 
‘Kneaded’

Alan 
Muskovitz
Contributing 
Writer

Denise Kalt, 
Barbara Wallace 
and Mindy 
Salzberg-Siegel, 
founders of 
Kneaded with 
Love.

LAURIE TENNENT

