Below is a letter from our head chef and board member Marg Ann:
So as the end of July comes along it is time for me to post something on the Bread & Roses page.
I was just asked the other day what my tag line from my emails means for me – it is what I strive for each day I get up. I have always tried my utmost to live the tag line in my email: Live Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly… Though I do fall short of that from time to time. For those who don’t know where this comes from, it is a biblical phrase from the Old Testament where a prophet is asked : “What does your God require of you?” and he responds with: “To live justly, love mercy and to walk humbly before my God”. This quote was brought home to me when my Father passed away a few years back. At the visitation for him – there were many people who came through that told me how much my dad impacted their lives, but what hit me the most were the ones who cam through who never actually met my father, but their parents knew my dad or someone else they knew, knew my dad and they had to come because what they were told about how he impacted their lives…
You see my father would do almost anything for anyone – he one time was stopped by some guy on the street who asked if my dad would spare some change so he could get a bus fare to Sudbury to see his dying father – my dad said to him “I will take you to the bus station and buy the ticket for you – if you want…” and the guy was stunned and questioned my father about it – and in the end accepted the gift, He said he was grateful for this. My father said he never saw the guy again… but that didn’t matter… He showed mercy and compassion to someone in need.
I realized that day at the visitation and then at the funeral that everything we do and say will impact someone’s life in some way either positive or negative, whether we know them or not, whether directly or indirectly… That what we do is seen by someone. I concluded that day that I would do my utmost to live as my father ~ Live Justly ~ Love Mercy ~ Walk Humbly… and in this way not only do I honor my father’s legacy he passed on, I also honor everyone around me and myself.
I am far from perfect and sometimes I mess up good… yet who on this planet we call earth is perfect and without faults… We are a contradiction – we say one thing and do another etc… yet I am learning to have mercy for myself and others…
I have learned so much about myself while managing Bread & Roses Cafe and Catering taking that with me as I move forward. This brings me to the Cafe portion of this posting… as most of you know the Bread & Roses Cafe, effective August 1st, is no longer going to exist. This was hard decision to come to and regarded a lot of thought, It was becoming apparent that the Cafe as is was reaching it’s limit. I have been able to take the cafe as far as I could in it’s present structure. So for Kevin, Mike, and myself it became very clear that the cafe needed to be restructured and that something different needed to take it’s place. We came up with turning it over into a for-profit privately owned business (which actually would fulfill one of the mandates of the Coop – small business incubator ). I said I would think about this a possibility for me to take on. After much thought I came to the conclusion that I had taken the cafe as far as could and that I would not be able to have the type of food establishment I really want to have in this physical location, as well as some other issues I would have to overcome and therefore decided that I was not the one to take this project on.
It is with great fondness on my time here that I hand off the Cafe to those who will take it over and I look forward to see where Mike (board member) & Beth Pattison and Tim Lidster (board Member and mortgage holder) will take on the new cafe, I am not going to say much here as I want them to explain their vision for their venture is going to be.
I am moving on to new ventures one of which will be a catering company called “Cloud 9 Cookery” it’s focus will be on Local Organic food, and will push environmental and food security issues. I am also looking forward to getting back into some activism as well, this has been an area of my life that was shelved for awhile. It will center around food security issues.
I will be staying on the Board for Sky Dragon, this is an important organization and I want to stay connected. You will see me around from time to time as my schedule will allow…
Live Justly ~ Love Mercy ~ Walk Humbly
Marg Ann
