The Blog: A new feature this week with words by Judy Sarkozy

Editor’s note: Today we introduce our new blog. We will be asking for insights from people from across the community who have something to say about their experiences, the ongoing state of affairs, or their lives that will speak to our current time together. This week we hear from Judy Sarkozy of the beloved bakery of the same name. This is what she wrote recently to those who subscribe to her newsletter. It captured the spirit of what we would like to see in these blog posts in the future. If you would like to contribute please let us know. — Kathy Jennings, Managing Editor, Southwest Michigan's Second Wave


Oh my goodness, where are we now? If by we, you mean Kalamazoo, or you mean your neighborhood, or you mean Southwest Michigan or beyond, the answer is so very complicated. How can we care for ourselves and our neighbors, how can we care for our families who may be distant, how can we care for the most vulnerable amongst us? 

If by we, you mean the bakery, we are staying open, keeping our normal hours, seven days and trying to be as creative as we can be. We have managed to keep our own shelves and our D&W shelves full when other bread companies have not. Demand has gone up beyond our capacity, demand has dropped below our necessary sales, and has gone up again and down again. We have been planning day-to-day, this week we're hoping that things to settle down and we can plan for the whole week. Fat chance.
Judy Sarkozy in a picture taken before COVID-19 hit Michigan.
We are starting a limited delivery service. It is dependent on volunteers and so we are starting off very small. We are limiting it to people older than I am (78) who are unable to use the drive-up curb service. It will be available on two days a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. The procedure will be that you call-in your order at least one day before. Then give us a credit card payment and delivery instructions. On Tuesday or Thursday our volunteer will pick up the orders and deliver them to your house. Right now we have to limit the area to which we deliver. 

Our volunteer, Becky Ligman, lives in Mattawan and so we are limiting the area to Kalamazoo/Portage above Romence Road and west to Mattawan. For now, you can use the menu that is on our web site to find what is available. https://www.sarkozybakery.com 

We really don't know how this is going to work but Becky has sparked the idea and is willing to help. Remember that we are amateurs at this so it may be rocky at first.

Personal stuff. My staff has prevailed upon me so that I do not go to market, I do not wait on customers, and I have stepped up personal protection measures. For example, I am wearing gloves whenever I count money and I disinfect that area of my office after I count money. It gets a little silly. Do I disinfect the pen I used, the mouse, the keyboard, the phone? Well, I guess the answers are, yes. So one result is that parts of my office had to be cleaned up so that I could disinfect them effectively. Wow, there are parts of my desk that I haven’t seen in years!!!

Also, it seems sort of strange. In the pre-Corvid 19 days, we wore gloves to protect your food from us. Now we wear gloves to protect us from Corvid 19. Then we use tissues to pick up the product to protect you from us. So in the first case we would take our gloves off to run the register, but now we leave our gloves on to run the register because it is assumed to be contaminated. So the order that Ken got when he was in the army seems relevant here. His sergeant said “Some men have their gloves on and some have them off. So if you have your gloves on, take them off and if you have your gloves off, put them on.” Trying to figure out what to do these days is a little bit like trying to follow that order. Good luck.

Our best to everyone as we brace for the coming days.