When Deluxe Cakes and Pastries owner Jamie Powers learned federal SNAP funding would be delayed this fall, she didn’t set up a committee or a fundraiser. She just started feeding people.
“If you were a social worker or a nurse or a firefighter, you’d just go where you’re needed,” Powers said. “That’s kind of how it is for me. We’ve always had our pulse on the food vulnerable.”
According to the Food Bank of America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study, all of Iowa’s 99 counties have seen an increase in food insecurity. To help, Deluxe Cakes and Pastries, a local Iowa City bakery, has implemented a “charge it to the neighborhood” policy, where customers facing food insecurity can order a free coffee and croissant, no questions asked, and the bakery foots the cost.
“It’s been a wonderful experience because people have walked in and given us donations, and we take them straight to the Free Lunch Program or the Johnson County United Way,” Powers said.
She estimates the bakery has already received around $150 from community members wanting to help since they announced the program at the beginning of the recent government shutdown.
Powers said the idea came when the bakery’s General Manager Heather Hughes sent her social media videos of bakeries creating similar programs.
“I thought, ‘Our community has supported us for 22 years,’” Powers said. “Why wouldn’t we do this?”
The promotion coincided with the 43-day-long federal government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, which withheld SNAP funding for lower-income citizens across the country.
However, Powers has been serving the community with free food and donations long before this year’s crisis, ever since opening the bakery in 2003.
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Powers said her staff served nearly 300 meals a day out of the shop. In 2020, the bakery launched a partnership with the Iowa City Free Lunch Program, which has been serving a free meal at noon six days a week since 1983.
The bakery permanently designated one staple item, a scone, as a fundraiser, with 100 percent of its profits going to the free lunch program, which totals to about $18 per day, Powers said.
“We have the bandwidth to do it,” Powers said. “We get asked for donations for things like Parent-Teacher Association meetings, but anyone’s mom can make brownies. We need to fund the people who need it.”
The program’s co-directors, Laura Hunter and Diane Platte, said they are grateful for the bakery’s partnership and the consistency it brings.
“We’re a very small organization with a small budget, and that means we really need every dollar that comes in,” Hunter said. “When we have a program willing to give a constant stream of funding, it gives us the stability to keep our pantry full instead of scrambling.”
Platte said the lunch program is usually busier at the end of the month, as people’s benefits run out, before quieting down once the next month begins. But as this November began, Platte said the community’s need for the program only grew.
“The need stayed elevated at the same level that it had been,” Platte said. “And we’re also seeing a lot more new faces throughout the month.”
Every six months, Powers tallies the scone sales and writes a check to the Iowa City Free Lunch Program. She said every year, the bakery contributes about $7,000, which is enough to cover nearly 2,000 meals given the program’s approximate cost of $4 per plate.
Hunter said the meals are only part of what keeps community members coming through the doors.
“One of the powers of our program is not just the meal, but the emotional connections that so many of our guests don’t have,” she said. “One woman told me all her family is overseas, and she said, ‘This is where I find my family. This is the closest thing I have to home.’ She comes because people here know her name, her story, and her life.”
Powers said she understands that need for community. When Deluxe Cakes and Pastries opened, Powers said her mission was to create a true “neighborhood business,” one that not only serves food but also supports the people around it, according to the bakery’s website.
Next year, Deluxe Cakes and Pastries will add another layer of support: 10 percent of all pie proceeds will be donated to the free lunch program in 2025, in addition to the ongoing scone fundraiser. The bakery also sends community donations directly to Johnson County United Way, an organization that provides funding and other resources to 29 partner agencies, including nonprofits, food banks, and homeless shelters.
The bakery also provides pastries twice a week for community meals hosted by Iowa City Mutual Aid, a local organization working “to meet the survival needs of the people whom our systems continuously fail,” according to their website.
“This community has supported our bakery for 22 years,” Powers said. “That’s how we can keep helping.”