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 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, and specialize in baking delicious fresh bread and pastries. One of their biggest orders yet, is baking 400 loaves of sourdough bread to later 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 to celebrate we decided to donate to the food bank, we later found out that they were having a Thanksgiving food drive, so we decided to jump in,” Sean Watkins said.

“We were told they were packing 400 boxes of food to give out and we decided to get involved and bake some loaves. We reached out to Anderson Auto Group and they helped us get some of the flour and other materials needed. We also got some student volunteers from the culinary program,” he said.

The Western Arizona Vocational Education, or W.A.V.E culinary program, learned about what Shawn and Tara Watkins were doing and wanted to get their students in the program some hands-on learning on baking bread and also be involved in a great cause.

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“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 W.A.V.E 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,” W.A.V.E 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.”

In order to make it possible, the Watkins received assistance from Anderson Auto Group who helped provide the raw materials such as the flour and salt, and The KAWS community kitchen, owned by Regan Robertson, who donated 40 hours of kitchen time to allow for some baking and food prep and supplied use of cooling racks and space for packaging.

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“Anderson Auto Group is a proud sponsor of both the W.A.V.E 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 a lot of opportunities to learn a lot about making bread. We also will try to come back and have more lessons to teach the kids where they can later donate what the make 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.

Jillian Danielson/RiverScene