Father and daughter create pay-it-forward bread stand in Cowichan Bay

Cowichan Bay -

This all began after Delilah’s dad built her a roadside stand out of a couple pallets and a few coats of paint.

"My favourites colour was pink," the 10-year-old says. "And I loved selling lemonade."

Business was booming, until Delilah was told COVID was looming.

"It wasn’t safe," she says. "It felt pretty bad."

Her dad, Stewart, started thinking about the idea that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade.

"But when life gives you a pandemic you can’t make lemonade either," I say.

"But you can make bread though!" Stewart responds with a laugh.

The thing was, Stewart had never really baked before.

"I always thought baking was a little too scientific," he says. "A little too complex."

But watching baking competition shows and YouTube how-to videos made it seem simple, so they tried it. And they loved it.

"I love baking with my dad," Delilah says. "I was like, ‘Why did you not bake [sooner]?’"

Stewart made up for lost time: He learned to make four different loaves and earned raves from his family.

"You don’t even have to be good," he says humbly. "You just serve it hot and it’s delicious."

The bread provided so much comfort for his family, Stewart decided to repurpose Delilah’s lemonade stand and offer the baking to the community — with a twist.

"It was free," Delilah smiles. "As long as you did a good deed."

The sign on the bread stand says you can take a loaf if you "promise to do a good deed for someone."

"I didn’t want any money from it," Stewart explains. "I just wanted people to enjoy it."

So far, 50 loaves have been taken. But a social media post about the stand seems to have inspired hundreds of other people to pay the kindness forward whether they eat a slice or not.

"If just one person does something nice because of me, the world’s a nicer place," Stewart says. "And that makes me happy."

But Stewart says the best thing of all — even better than teaching Delilah that yeast makes bread rise up — is showing her how cultivating kindness makes a community’s spirit rise up even higher.