Live Great:
Sister Schubert Shares “Recipes for Success, Cooking and Living”
Sister Schubert’s book “Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters,” combines her “recipes for success, cooking and living.”
One of Kappa Delta’s most notable members, Patricia Wood Barnes, aka Sister Schubert, attended the recent Georgia-South Carolina State Day where she signed copies of her cookbook, “Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters,” and served as the keynote speaker. Sister is an initiate of Delta Delta-Troy and an affiliate of Zeta-Alabama and Sigma Lambda-Auburn. With a cheerful greeting to the 140 KDs gathered in Atlanta, Sister said, “Wherever I go, I am called Sister, but the wonderful thing today is that I can call all of you ‘sister’!”
Sister shared some of her personal stories that are found in her book, including how she went from making rolls in her grandmother’s kitchen to creating the national brand Sister Schubert’s Homemade Rolls to using her financial success to help others. She said the new book combines her “recipes for success, cooking and living.”
“I believe we are all born with a purpose,” Sister told the KDs. “God kept that love of cooking and baking in me ... I never dreamed that my love of cooking could become a career for me.”
Like a pebble in a pond, Sister said there has been a ripple effect – from her love of baking came the professional bakery and then many more opportunities, including the founding of the Barnes Family Foundation through which Sister and her husband, George, established Sasha’s Home for abandoned children in the Ukraine. Sister donated the proceeds of the cookbooks sold during the State Day event to the orphanage.
“Because of all the blessings I have been given,” Sister said, “I knew I had to give back. I let God lead me in the path I should follow.”
A few years ago, Sister’s path led her to the Ukraine where she heard about a little boy with severely clubbed feet who would most likely never be able to walk, would not be adopted and would spend his adult years as a beggar on the street. When sister walked into the room filled with cribs, she spotted the beautiful blond-haired boy. His bright eyes fixed on her, and then he reached for her fingers as she touched his crib. He won her heart in that moment, and soon after the Barnes family began the process to bring him home. Sister said, “He has done more for our lives than we have ever done for him.”
In closing, Sister pointed out to the group of KDs that it is no coincidence that her company’s colors are green and white and her business motto is “pure and simple.” The motto is based on KD founder Lenora Ashmore Blackiston’s words: “Out of such pure and simple beginnings grow great and wonderful things.”
Sister said she believes that Lenora dreamed of what KD could become just as she dreamed of what her little bakery could be. She urged the KDs to take the sorority’s open motto of “Let us strive for that which is honorable, beautiful and highest,” and “step up to it. Whatever you do,” Sister said, “It will come back to you tenfold. It is still possible to have a dream come true. You just have to believe in yourself and have the will to make it come true.”