The Miracle of the Loaves
IN MID-NOVEMBER 1979, Sigrid Cerf, an Annandale housewife, saw a picture of a starving Cambodian child on the cover of Time magazine. Reading that 2 1/4 million Cambodians faced starvation, she resolved to do something to express her sympathy for their plight.
Her options were limited; she was homebound with two sons, one only 10 months old, and further isolated by deafness. But drawing from childhood memories of her mother and grandmother baking in a warm kitchen on cold days, she was determined to raise money for Cambodian relief by selling homemade bread.
Cerf began to work in her tiny U-shaped kitchen, which, while convenient for preparing family meals, is hardly the space needed to turn out 70 to 80 loaves of bread a day. Yet the kitchen opens to the dining area and the family room beyond, making it possible for her to work while the baby slept or played nearby. And accommodations were possible: While Cerf mixed dough, dinner could simmer in a crockery cooker in the bathroom.
Soon television publicity brought so many orders she couldn't keep up and, even more than space, she wanted extra hands to knead dough. When word went out that she needed help, "the whole community of Camelot the Annandale subdivision where the Cerfs live was at my door," she says.
Neighbors kneaded dough, chopped apples, grated cheese, bagged, labeled and delivered bread. A woman confined to a wheelchair took telephone orders. The man next door took care of the Cerfs' yard to allow her computer-scientist husband, Vint, more time to help. The proprietor of Health Way, a neighborhood health food store, helped them to buy ingredients wholesale. "After people meet Sigrid they are transformed by the experience," Vint Cerf says.
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