Sheila Lincoln Papps learned how to bake bread during the pandemic. She rolled up her sleeves and kneaded and shaped more bread than she and her husband could ever eat.
“We kept throwing out half-eaten loaves of bread,” Papps said.
So, instead of throwing the bread away she decided to gift it.
“There was so much tension in town over so many things, Facebook fights and all that nonsense, that I said to myself, ‘Let me do something nice in town.'”
That’s how her Random Acts of Carbness Project was born.
Papps still bakes bread but she gives the loaves away to anyone in town who could use what she describes as “carb therapy.” She posts on the Taste of Easton & Redding Facebook page that she’s baking bread and when the loaves will be ready, and asks if anyone wants a loaf or knows someone who might to private message her or comment on her post.
If someone private messages her with a person they think could use a loaf, Papps will anonymously drop off the bread at their house wrapped in a gift bag that reads “Baked with Love.”
“The people who could use a pick me up and are nominated I anonymously drop off the bread on their doorsteps,” said Papps, who is the co-admin of the Taste of Easton & Redding Facebook page with Salvatore Giardina.
Her bread is so popular that Papps is making half loaves and quarter loaves to accommodate more people in the community. She bakes all types of bread, including sourdough, Italian, French, and rye.
“She gifted me three loaves of bread. It was absolutely delicious,” said Jamie Weinstein.
Joni Ballas said Papps’ bread spreads joy throughout the community. “She’s brought happiness to a lot of people,” Ballas said.
Most recently, Papps extended her Random Acts of Carbness Project to benefit the humanitarian crisis brought on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Half Slovakian, she posted that she had upped her “pierogi game.” She offered free pierogis as a thank you to anyone who donated to a Ukrainian relief fund of their choice.
