By Janet Cruz

Content sponsored by Anderson Auto Group

The Thanksgiving holiday is just around the corner, and one local bakery in Lake Havasu City is hoping to bring a bit of joy to individuals in need by providing free baked bread loaves to the food bank with the help of the community this season.

Sean and Tara Watkins are the owners of Desert Doe Bakery in Lake Havasu City, specializing in baking fresh bread and pastries. One of their biggest orders yet is to bake 400 loaves of sourdough bread to be donated to the local food bank to help feed many families, and at the same time, allow local culinary students to learn the skills to bake bread while volunteering their time.

“A few months ago, we won a bread-baking competition and decided to celebrate with a bake for the food bank, and when we went there to drop off the bread, they brought up the food boxes for Thanksgiving. We jumped into it without fully asking. They came back to us with a number and they said, ‘Just so you know, it’s 400 boxes,’ ” Sean Watkins said.

“We reached out to Anderson (Auto Group) and to the WAVE school and Adnerson agreed to fund all the materials like the salt, the flour, packaging – all the stuff we needed. The WAVE kids volunteeered and mixed and portioned and shaped about 250 of the loaves,” he said.

The Western Arizona Vocational Education, or WAVE Culinary Arts and Hospitality program, is a part of the Lake Havasu Unified School District and provides students with a quality career preparation program.

Watkins said Havasu Together acted as logistical support for the project. “So Andeson donated the funds to Havasu Together and they went around Havasu, Bullhead and Mohave buying up all the bread flour just so we’d be ablt to make the order on time for the food boxes.”

The KAWS community kitchen, owned by Regan Robertson, donated 40 hours of kitchen time to allow for some baking and food prep and supplied use of cooling racks and space for packaging.

Jillian Danielson/RiverScene

“I definitely learned the science behind bread, and how to follow the correct steps and shape it correctly so it comes out right in the long run,” said WAVE culinary student at Lake Havasu High School, Aurora Diaz.

“I learned the importance of making sure all the ingredients are measured correctly, if its not exact the dough won’t come out right,” WAVE culinary student Kayla Nguyen said.

“It also makes me so happy to do this because not everybody is able to cook their own Thanksgiving meal for themselves and when they open their food box, they will be happy and possibly share it with other people.”

Jillian Danielson/RiverScene

“Anderson Auto Group is a proud sponsor of both the WAVE program and the nonprofit Havasu Together and we were glad to be able to provide the funding for all the ingredients needed,” said Anderson Auto Group Director of Marketing, Andrea Foote.

The Watkins so far have the first batch of loaves which are ready for distribution to the food bank, and the rest of the batch will be baked over the weekend before delivery to the local food bank.

“I am so grateful to be able to help feed the community,” Tara Watkins said.

“This is also such a great opportunity for the W.A.V.E culinary kids since they don’t have that much of an opportunity to learn a lot about making bread. We’re gonna come back and do more of these lessons with the WAVE kids where the things they make within the lesson can be donated to the community,” Sean Watkins said.

For more information about the food bank Thanksgiving food box distribution, call Community Health Foundation Food Bank at 928-264-1177. To find out more about WAVE, visit wavejted.org. Visit Havasu Together on Facebook for more information.

Jillian Danielson/RiverScene