September 11. We all have stories. One of our DC area bakeries was owned by a couple that had Pentagon ties. He worked there. She used to. They lost some friends in the attack. Like the entire country, we were all aching to do something. But, we were sitting
in Montana 2000 miles away. What could we do? We did the only thing we knew. We baked bread. We opened our training bakery to the public and sold the bread. We took all of the money we raised and sent it to the Pentagon 9/11 Victim Relief fund. A bunch of Great Harvest bakeries did the same thing in their towns. We felt better. But...
One of our field reps, Kayla Conner, came up to me at the end of the day as I was all happy with what we had done and said, "You know, that was awesome, but is it enough? We did a great thing but that is the only time the home office has ever done that. We have tons of organizations in Montana that need help. Can't we do something for them, too?"
Wow. Talk about getting a reality check. She was totally right. The fifth line of the Great Harvest Mission Statement reads Give generously to others.
It was time for the home office to start to walk the walk. It was something we all wanted to do, but we just never had as an office. That was no one's fault. We just hadn't. We were generous people doing generous things individually in the community, but not as a group.
So, we thought about how could we fix that. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of making it a part of the training that our franchisees receive when they buy a store. Prior to that, we had encouraged bakeries to give back to their communities, but had never led by example. The bakeries were living generosity but were we? From that moment forward, every training class that has come into the Great Harvest system has opened the training bakery for a day, baked and sold bread, and given all of the money to a local southwest Montana charity. Over 50 classes. Over 50 bake days. Over $200,000.
That has become a part of our training culture. People that join the Great Harvest family of bakery owners get the spirit of generosity from the day they graduate to being an owner. It isn't just a line in our mission statement. It is something we care enough about to shut the office down for these days (did I mentio
n that these things have become so popular that trainees can't handle them on their own so we close the office for the day and join in the effort with them?) so that we can really live the dream.
And all because one field rep had the guts to say three little words. Three words everyone wanted to say but she actually did.
"Is it enough?"
Kayla Conner photo
