December 3, 2009 - On a mission to share the tradition of baking bread at home, The King Arthur Flour Company of Norwich, Vt., will visit the Loudonville Elementary School in Loudonville, N.Y., on Friday, December 11, 2009, to teach 138 fourth- through sixth-grade students to bake fresh, nutritious bread from scratch through its Life Skills Bread Baking Program. The assembly will be held in the auditorium at 10 a.m. Students will then use their newfound skill – along with ingredients donated by King Arthur Flour – to bake their own loaves for donation to the Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany, N.Y.

The King Arthur Flour Life Skills Bread Baking Program visits 4th-7th graders in schools across the country and in the past decade has taught more than 100,000 schoolchildren how to bake bread. Students bake the bread at home with their families, then bring a loaf back to school to be donated to a local food pantry or homeless shelter.

King Arthur Flour also incorporates whole grains into the demonstration, teaching kids what whole grains are, why they’re important in a healthy diet, and how to use them in everyday baking. Each student receives bags of both King Arthur All-Purpose Flour and King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour to help them bake healthy breads at home.

Senior Life Skills Instructor Paula Gray says she loves teaching children the skill of bread baking – a hands-on way for kids to learn math, science, and cultural traditions all while having fun – and hopes they bring that skill home and share it with loved ones. The program helps involve children with community service, too; “They’re learning the value and the joy of giving something back to the community,” she says. “Food pantries are delighted to have 138 loaves of freshly baked homemade bread to offer the people they serve.”

Teachers are also enthusiastic about the unique learning opportunities afforded by the Life Skills Bread Baking Program, through which students can see, feel and consume what they’ve learned. “The combination of our school’s activities, King Arthur Flour’s demonstrations, and providing both the recipe and ingredients for families worked its magic,” said one teacher. “Students brought more than 300 loaves of bread to school with them on Monday morning.”

“Human beings have been baking bread for some 10,000 years,” said King Arthur Flour Board of Trustees Chairman Frank Sands, “but these days, fewer people are baking at home, so the tradition isn’t being handed down. We want to pass on this traditional life skill to the next generation, so they can nourish themselves with healthy home-baked bread for the rest of their lives.”