From office to kitchen, IVCC employee's love of baking helps people in need

Leftovers never stop Patricia Glade.

Fresh-baked sourdough bread left over from her market day sales went to people who needed it – to homeless shelters or to Illinois Valley Community College’s food pantry, Eagles Peak.

Co-workers on campus, where Glade is Workforce Development Division administrative assistant, already appreciated the delicacies she brought to work. But then she adopted an idea she read about on social media, and Crumbs for a Cause was born.

“You might not sell out at the market, and I did not want the bread to go to waste," she said of her idea to donate the unsold loaves. Her family, usually willing tasters, “gets breaded out unless I am trying a new recipe.” So, for a time this past fall, fresh loaves became an incentive to spur donations to the campus food pantry.

Donors lined up for deliveries. “It was good to know it had an impact!” Glade said.

Though baking was a chore she was assigned growing up on a farm, it became a passion for Glade, for which she has called on her heirloom recipes or created her own. “I started baking with my mom when I was 8 or 9 years old, and by 10 or 11, I was doing it myself. Eventually it became my job to bake on the weekends.”

Glade said the act of stretching, folding, and shaping bread dough is Zen-like. “Everything in your head just goes away, and there is no one in the kitchen – just me. I mix and match flavors constantly. There is a nutritional aspect as well as the artistic aspect in how you score and shape the bread.”

Creative combinations of seasonings, fruits, vegetables, or cheeses create unique bread flavors. Her Italian herb-and-cheese and chocolate-covered strawberry-flavored sourdoughs are crowd pleasers. Skeptics shocked at a taco-flavored variety are won over by the taste.

Glade is aware she has a flour-dusted hand in history. “Bread is about life and love and caring. Every generation and nationality has had some sort of bread attached to it. Sourdough is a three-day process, and a lot of things can go wrong in that time, but a lot can go right and you end up with a fantastic product. When you smell bread, the brain recognizes it is something good!”

Glade’s baking kicks into high gear during the holidays, expanding beyond bread. She supplied dozens of decorated sugar cookies to a local concert association in which a granddaughter plays. And the traditional German gingerbread cookie, lebkuchen, made from a generations-old family recipe, also makes an appearance this time of year. “I am known for my lebkuchen!” Glade said.

Each generation brings new life to the baking process. The year a granddaughter used Halloween ghost cookie cutters to make Christmas “Spirits" and invented stories to go with them is fondly recalled each time they decorate a new batch of cookies.

Whether it is bread for the campus pantry or treats shared with friends and family, Glade’s baking continues to bring comfort to the Illinois Valley community.