To the Editor,

Our Sourdough 101 bread baking class held on May 4 raised $700 for FAITH Food Pantry, a nonprofit that provides food assistance to our neighbors in need.

This success was only made possible with the help of some wonderful people, who we would like to thank:

Newtown Community Center Director Matt Ariniello and his staff, who helped plan the event, created the promotional flyer, handled many details, took care of registrations, ensured we had the supplies we needed and arranged use of the kitchen ahead of time for test run-throughs.

Michele Buzzi, who not only arrived early to set up the PowerPoint presentation but also stayed to help with many aspects of the set-up as well as the clean-up.

Sue Shpunt and Jane Stadler of FAITH Food Pantry, who came early and helped set up 120+ containers of starter for participants to take home, sliced and plated many loaves of bread for participants to taste, and assisted with table-to-table demonstrations.

Laura Amodeo, Ann de la Vega, Beth Groonell, and Marci Mitchell, who baked loaves of sourdough one day earlier, so they’d be fresh for tasting the day of the class.

Finally, our 70+ students who entrusted us with teaching them the art and science of making sourdough. We couldn’t have asked for a better group! They were attentive, engaged, and asked lots of excellent questions. It was fun teaching them! It’s been a joy receiving the texts, emails, Facebook private messages, and posts put on our personal Facebook pages, where students shared impressive-looking pictures of breads they baked following the class.

If you were unable to take this class, we will be holding another at Newtown Senior Center on Saturday, July 20. Reach out to either of us or the senior center for more information.

With profound gratitude,

Jeff Capeci

Kathy Ronan

Newtown