"President Cheeks"

🥖 order bread

Good morning bread friends!

As a reminder - this is the last weekly bake for a little while. In last week’s email I explained that starting in June I’ll be moving to a “pop-up” model for this bakery for the summer. This means I won’t be writing every Thursday & then baking every Saturday. Instead you’ll get the occasional email from me on a Thursday that invites you to pre-order bread for that Saturday. These bake sales will likely pop-up as a little surprise… simply based on when my work/life/family schedule allows for a bake that week.

Thanks for your understanding and support. Feel free to order extra bread today if you want to stock up. If you decide to do that, I recommend slicing your loaf and then putting the slices in the freezer. Straight from the freezer to the toaster works wonderfully in our house!

I’ve really hoped this day would come when I’d get to share this particular professional update with you all…

After a several month long search, the Madison Public Schools Foundation (MPSF) has announced that I’ve been hired to serve as the next President of the foundation.

Some of you may know the Foundation for their “Adopt-A-School” program that supports relationships between schools and businesses/organizations in the community, or their “Teacher Support Network” that emerged during COVID.

For those that may not be familiar, MPSF raises private funds, develops community partnerships, and advocates for Madison’s public schools on behalf of the Madison Metropolitan School District, its teachers, and students.

With more than $14 million in assets, the foundation also provides fiscal oversight for 170 school-based funds. We deliver resources to all of Madison’s 52 public schools, serving more than 25,000 students in grades 4K-12.

I’ve been volunteering in our schools, and specifically volunteering with the foundation in various ways for almost 15 years.

Going through old photos, I recently found this picture from 13 years ago. I was on the board of the foundation at the time and got to help distribute grants to about a dozen teachers in various schools who were receiving grant funding to support innovative classroom initiatives.

Public schools are one of the few places left in this country where people from all walks of life share the same space. This makes them one of our most important societal institutions in my view.

We need strong public schools in order to have strong communities, and the Madison Public Schools Foundation has been key to the strengthening of our community since it first started 25 years ago.

Stepping into this role feels like an opportunity to ask what the next 25 years need to look like for our schools and for our community.

I’m super excited to get to work!

Thanks again to this Bread & Justice community for being a bastion of hope for me… and especially for all the support and encouragement in the past 6 months when the next steps in my career weren’t at all obvious to me.

It’s going to be a busy summer of learning and developing new rhythms.

I’m looking forward to sharing more updates with you over time.

Cheers!

Mo
community baker