The Village Oven Project

Tinder Hearth History

We chose to go low-cost because we did not know how the

community might respond to the bakery.  As you might know, the response to the bread has been overwhelmingly positive.  We've had many requests to give workshops in bread making and oven building.  At least seven news articles have mentioned us during our two years of baking, not only for our tasty bread, but also for our traditional baking methods and community building efforts—including the November 30th issue of the New York Times Magazine!

The other community projects we host—including the ever-popular Open Mic, educational workshops, and our constant work with young apprentices—rely on the income, enthusiasm, and heart that the bakery brings to this place.

Tinder Hearth is now at a critical moment of change. It is no longer possible for us to meet the needs of our community and the projects we wish to pursue with our small deteriorating clay oven. The ongoing enthusiasm we receive is a signal that it is now time for us to grow as an organization and become an accessible resource to the community.  The Village Oven Project is the cornerstone of this growth. 

A New Oven

A village oven provides a hearth, a gathering place, a ground for rekindling our relationships with the very things that support our lives—food, fire, community labor and exchange, and the land under our feet.  We want to build this oven for the Blue Hill Peninsula at Tinder Hearth this

spring.  We are calling on you, our community members, to

support this effort. 

A new oven will allow us to:

        - Bake in an energy efficient manner

        - Teach our apprentices more effectively

        - Meet the Peninsula’s demand for our bread

        - Sell bread year-round

Community Impact

West Brooksville served as the Peninsula’s “bread basket” in the 1800s—we want to bring this local system back to life.  Access to local food benefits a community through better nutrition and a stronger local economy.  We approach this challenge in three major ways:

        1. Baking with locally grown grain requires creative problem solving, enthusiastic marketing, and many

            unpaid hours of work.  We are dedicated to this project, and the new oven will make this work feasible.

        2. A key piece to the growth of a viable local food system lies in education.  The bakery will be a

            space in which to gather for workshops and

            meetings that will help us transition as a community.

        3. Tinder Hearth Bakery teaches traditional bread making

            to four to six apprentices every year.  It is a place

            where young people develop new relationships to

            life-sustaining craft.  We hope to continue to be an

            inspiration and a resource to young people in the

            community who are interested in starting projects close

            to home.

Costs Of Project

This project will be impossible without the support of our

community members.  Six professional builders and masons

have agreed to donate their time to the building project if we

can raise the money for the materials.  Many other friends have

offered their labor as well.

We need $30,000 to cover the cost of materials to build the oven and finish the dough prep room. At this point we have raised about to $15,000, including a $10,000 Food Security Grant from the Community Health Alliance.

We are calling on you, as a person who is dedicated to the health of this community, to help raise the final $15,000.  A donation of any size will be greatly appreciated.  Thank you very much for helping this project come to life!