Proof Baking Encourages Stuffing Face with Bread for Charity

Michael Shwe and his son get ready to give out bread.

​Maybe you've seen Michael Shwe around. He's the dude handing out delicious free bread on Fridays at Philz Coffee on Fourth St. at Berry. Of course, if you're not a terrible person, you're most likely leaving a donation for the bread, which doesn't go into Shwe's pocket. Instead, his business, Proof Baking, donates 100 percent of its profits to New Door Ventures, a nonprofit that partners with local business to give three-month job internships to disconnected local youth. Pretty rad.

Shwe's Friday morning Philz activity raises money and awareness for New Door as well as signing up volunteers and Ally Partners, the business that provide job internships. He also hosts periodic baking classes as fundraisers, and "Open Kitchen Thursdays," where people come to his house and bake Friday's loaves. The revenue from all of these activities goes to New Door, which keeps his books clean and makes donators feel a bit better about gorging on gluten.

Awesome bread, awesome tie.

​Shwe says he picked New Door Ventures because it has measurable and impressive success rates with their interns: 86 percent get full-time jobs or go onto higher education through a GED or completing high school or college.

Maybe bread is the key to world peace. Not to get all deep and shit, but can you imagine if we all did something like this? The world would be a completely different place. See? Deep. Kinda. Or maybe we'll just eat this excellent bread until we're so fat that we can't get outside to see the earth self-destruct. Decisions, decisions.

Moving on!

Next Friday, June 10, Shwe will give out loaves of sourdough for $20 donations, and slices for pay-what-you-can. He's pretty much the greatest, so go buy his bread, support New Ventures, and if you can't make it on Fridays, you can always make a donation on Proof Baking's website and Shwe will deliver a fresh loaf to your face. Let the binge begin!