@Rhonda Talamo , @Sandy Chong , @Candi Brown-McGriff , @Colleen Vergara , @Henry Hunter First of all, I want to say I know times are very tight for all of us. I'm a retired teacher, so I know the sacrifice that donating may have been for those who've already donated. Sincere kudos to all who have already donated. But this is not about me! And for those who would love to donate, but are unable to, please consider my second donation, as your own.😉. But guys, we are a 1,000 member strong community! I know we can do this!😉. I believe in us!!!☺️😊 I have only been a member of Crust & Crumb Academy (C&C) for about 6 weeks. When I first joined, I was clicking through the site waiting for the pop-up that said, "Click here and choose a Plan to continue..."🥴 But, that pop-up never came. I'd already joined another bread baking community, and it was NOT free. But, it was worth it, to me. How much more is C&C worth it, when Henry has 20 times the resources (not an exaggeration!) of the other community - FOR FREE? During these 6 weeks, I have noticed how much time and energy HAD to be invested in all that is available to us, at the click of a mouse or a tap of a finger! For example, I just went into the classroom, and typed "cold retard" in the search box. Twenty (20) videos came up! TWENTY, y'all! 🤦🏽‍♀️ Goodness gracious!😳 And in the community, it's mentioned 118 times! This is just ONE TERM! It is extremely rare for someone to HAVE so much time to give to their passion. It is even MORE rare, in this day and age for someone to TAKE so much time - literally day and night away from their family, to help people they've never met, become better and more confident bakers of bread. And to do all of this FOR FREE? Does anyone know of any other place where YEARS of insight, wisdom, and help is offered FOR FREE? So, I donated again. But this is not about me! I believe we all want to see Ryan do well at Nationals. And I believe we all want to see Henry be in the stands cheering him on, as any parent would want to be there for their child. So, if you haven't already donated, please take a minute and do so, if you can. Think about all the help you've received from C&C - the access to gazillions of resources, the myriad of answered questions, the stress and intimidation relief, the improvement in your bakes, and being part of a community that genuinely cares, supports, and encourages you with every bake. Donating is just a small way to say a tangible thank you to Henry - for all that you've learned, for all that you have access to - and to express that gratitude by paying it forward. C'mon, C&C! WE CAN DO THIS!!! I copied the link below from a post Henry shared:

🌾 Today's Spotlight goes to @Dianne Givens for baking her first einkorn sourdough using the new recipe and posting it in the Show-Off Feed. 👏🔥 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Here's why this one matters. Einkorn is one of the harder ancient grains for a beginner to handle. ⚠️ Low gluten tolerance ⚠️ Fast fermentation ⚠️ A dough that will not forgive an overworked hand It's the kind of bread that humbles experienced bakers, let alone someone tackling it for the first time. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Dianne paid attention. 🥣 She built her starter ⏱️ Watched her levain 📈 Respected the timing 🙌 Trusted the process And the crumb tells the story. Twenty hours after she posted, the thread is still pulling responses from the community. That's what happens when a baker shows real preparation and real discipline. People notice. People learn from it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👏 Dianne, well done. You set the bar high for first einkorn bakes. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ To everyone else... 👉 Go take a look. 👉 Ask her questions. 👉 Leave her a note. This is the kind of bake that lifts the whole room. 🧡 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✨ Perfection is not required. Progress is. Henry ⭐🔥

She came cheap and stayed strong. The little rubber feet on the bottom gave up the ghost a long time ago. She’s gone through dozens of batteries. She’s been wiped down after a thousand sticky-finger weighings and she never complained once. She weighed every loaf I baked, every levain I built, every gram of salt and water and flour that became something worth eating. She didn’t ask for much. Just a flat surface and a fresh battery now and then. But today, a new scale arrived. And as it goes with everything in this kitchen and in this life, the old gives way to the new. The circle continues. She’ll be missed. If you’ve got a few words for my faithful old scale, leave them in the comments. Pour one out for the bakers’ workhorses that quietly carry us through. R.I.P., old friend. You weighed true. Henry ⭐🔥

I really appreciate the liveliness this community has with every single person. However, if I do not make this post, then what follows in the coming month(s) will not make any sense. So here it is. I am pumped to look at all these recipes about bread, the food I enjoy eating and loving to make, and to see everyone coming in and posting their delicious bakes of flour, water, yeast, and salt transformed. Nothing delights me as much as seeing a freshly baked loaf of bread sitting on someone’s table or countertop. So, why have I not posted any bakes? Some of you might already know part of my problem: the tools I do not have for the making and baking. But most of you probably do not know this part: The incapability via unaffordability. Sure, I COULD buy the ingredients for the bread I want to make. Sure, I COULD buy a few of the bread making tools. Sure, I COULD do all that. But I do not. Because...my situation does not allow me to. And to add on to that, I am not in a position where I CAN do all that. (In other words, what I am doing with my life is something we call “dealing with priorities.”) It HURTS. I love seeing the weekly challenges, but I do get tired of thinking that I "have to catch up” or "fearing that I am falling behind.” All this to say: I am stopping. Slowing. Pausing. NOT quitting. If you do not “see” me much in this community after today, this is why. I will bake a loaf of bread. And I will post it in here. Just not right now.

Good Morning, Community Family, Time is drawing near. Please help out as Henry has done more than enough for us. We need to show a little appreciation. I am pleading from you all. Every little helps, it's not how big or small, but definitely coming from your hearts. I can't thank-you all enough as a little generosity definitely helps. Please let us help meeting his target. I appreciate and love you all as after all we are family. Family always helps each other out, so let's make Henry proud that he can always count on us as family as he regards us all as family. Luv Bug loves and cares for you all. Much appreciated! 🪲 https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-cheer-ryan-at-ncaa-nationals