The short version: we give 5% of our quarterly profits to food-focused charities because the woman whose recipe we bake treated food as something you share.
Plenty of companies have a giving line on their website. Here is the honest story behind ours.
Jeanne gave first
Grandma Jeanne gave in the ways we could see. She packed her suitcase with desserts instead of clothes so she could share them wherever she went. She taught baking classes to the elderly in her community, and people there saw her as a leader. She baked well into her nineties and lived to 102, and she never arrived anywhere empty-handed.
We will not claim to know her charitable ledger. That is not something she kept, and we will not invent one for her. What we know is how she treated people and how she treated food, and when her recipe became a business, giving felt less like a decision and more like an inheritance.
Why food, specifically
We make food. It would be strange to make food for people who can pay and think nothing about people who cannot.
Hunger is also not an abstract problem in Colorado. It is in every county we deliver to. Food-focused charities do the unglamorous daily work of closing that gap, and money is the thing they can use most flexibly.
Our giving started as the mandel bread itself, donated to local food banks. Then a friend suggested we make it a percentage of profits instead, so the giving would grow with the business, and we ran with it. Today that means 5% of our quarterly profits, given to food-focused charities. When you buy a box of mandel bread, a piece of it feeds someone you will never meet. Jeanne would have called that the whole point.
What we will not claim
We are a small bakery, and 5% of a small bakery's profits is a modest number. We will not dress it up as changing the world. It is a family habit, kept honestly, at whatever size we happen to be. As we grow, it grows. That is the whole model.
We would rather tell you that plainly than inflate it, for the same reason we tell you our mandel bread is not certified kosher. Honest food, honestly labeled, applies to the giving too.
Frequently asked questions
Does Lazar Family Bakehouse donate to charity?
Yes. 5% of quarterly profits go to food-focused charities. The giving began as mandel bread donated directly to local food banks.
Why does Lazar Family Bakehouse give 5%?
The spirit comes from Grandma Jeanne, whose recipe the bakery uses. She taught cooking classes to the elderly in her community and never arrived anywhere empty-handed. The percentage form came later, from a friend's suggestion the family ran with.
Does buying a gift box support the donation?
Yes. The 5% commitment applies to profits across everything we sell.
The rest of the story
Jeanne's whole story is on our story page, and the recipe she left us is in every box we sell. Denver locals can order the gift boxes right on our site, and we ship locally. Everywhere else in the U.S., we ship through Goldbelly.