08/11/2026
This week, some very special people drove north. ā¤ļø
If you followed along with my Hurricane Helene trips to North Carolina, you probably heard me talk about Camp Miller, and two of the people who helped make that place work became like family to me.
Madalyn and David are North Carolina natives who live just down the road from where the camp was located. They didnāt just watch Hurricane Helene unfold on the news. They watched it from their front porch.
They watched the flooding happen. They watched their neighbors and communities get pummeled. They watched homes, roads, businesses and lives change in a matter of hours, and then lived through the long, exhausting aftermath that doesnāt make the headlines quite as often.
And then they went to work.
For a couple of months, while Camp Miller was in full swing, Madalyn and David essentially lived there. They ran the distribution side of camp, which took in truckload after truckload of donations that strangers were sending from all over the country, figuring out how to sort and organize all of it, and then getting those supplies back out into their community in ways that were actually useful.
I made half a dozen trips to North Carolina during that time, and on more than half of those trips, I worked directly alongside Madalyn and David.
Sometimes my job was simply to step into their shoes for a few days so they could leave camp, go home, take care of life, and remember for a minute that they were human beings and not relief-work machines.
And even in the beginning all of that chaos, they stopped being people I volunteered with and they became family.
This past November, I finally got to bring my kids down to North Carolina to meet everyone Iād spent so much time talking about. And Madalyn and David did exactly what they had done with me: they folded my children right into their family too.
And now, Madalyn, David, and their daughter Katie made the trip north this week to visit us, and I cannot adequately explain how excited and honored I am to get to show them OUR home this time.
They showed me their mountains. They trusted me with their community. They gave me a place at their table during one of the hardest chapters of their lives.
Now my family gets the chance to show them Northern Michigan. ā¤ļø
Because of that, The Bread Lady is going to look just a little different this week.
We will still be OPEN, but the coffee bar will close at 2 PM each day while theyāre here so I can step away and spend the afternoons and evenings with people I donāt get nearly enough time with.
Bakery goodies will still be available on the counters after 2 and can be purchased at the TCH front counter; you just wonāt be able to get a latte from me.
Owning a small business means there is almost always a reason to stay at work another hour. But some people are worth closing for.
These are absolutely those people.
Welcome to Michigan, Madalyn, David & Katie. We cannot wait to show you the place we call home. ā¤ļø
If anyone has any suggestions of where I should take them, budget friendly, please leave a comment!
