You hungrily scan the rows of plump bagels and
cinnamon-and-sugar covered pastries at your favorite cafe,
carefully selecting the perfect pairing for your midday
coffee or post-Mass outing.
But what happens to the bread-based items at the end of the
day or after they’ve reached their sell-by date?
Much of it likely goes from display case to trash can to
landfill, according to a recent study by the Natural
Resources Defense Council, an environmental action group. The
study found that 40 percent of food in the United States goes
uneaten.
Tossing out edible food does not sit well with Jim McCracken,
a parishioner of St. Louis Church in Alexandria, especially
given that food insecurity across the diocese ranges from 5.2
percent to 17 percent of the population, according to
diocesan Catholic Charites. The U.S. Department of
Agriculture defines food insecurity as a state in which
“consistent access to adequate food is limited by a lack of
money and other resources at times during the year.”
To divert at least some food from landfills into hungry
stomachs, McCracken began what he refers to as a “food
gleaning ministry” 15 years ago. Called “Bread for Our
Brothers,” the ministry is a partnership between the Mount
Vernon Knights of Columbus and St. Louis Parish that brings
unsalable bread products from five food vendors to 20 food
pantries, shelters and churches, including Christ House in
Alexandria, the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry in
Fredericksburg and the Catholic Charities-run St. Lucy
Project distribution center in Manassas, which serves as a
hub for parish food pantry donations. Bread also is brought
to 10 local religious communities, including the Poor Clares
and Poor Sisters of St. Joseph in Alexandria.
Gleaning, referred to multiple times in the Bible, is the
custom of allowing the poor to follow reapers in the field
and gather the fallen but edible food. McCracken says the
term is fitting because his ministry not only collects bread
that would otherwise be wasted but also fulfills the Gospel
call to care for the poor and “live with charity.”
Bread for Our Brothers began while McCracken was attending
Trinity University’s Education for Parish Services program in
D.C. A classmate and Maryland Knight who had been collecting
extra bread from an industrial bakery and bringing it to food
pantries in Maryland and Washington was looking for another
place to distribute the loaves.
McCracken volunteered to help, and he began transporting
bread to the nonprofit United Community Ministries in
Alexandria, where he’d been teaching adults computer skills.
“I’d fill up my van with all this fresh bread, and the
windows would steam up,” recalled McCracken. “It always
smelled like a bakery.”
The ministry has grown over the years, with around 45
volunteers now gathering a mix of pastries, artisan breads,
bagels and rolls from three Safeways and one Panera Bread
store near St. Louis Church. They collect sliced bread from
the Lorton and Alexandria depots of Bimbo Bakeries USA, the
largest bakery company in the United States; Vermont Bread
Co., an organic baked goods supplier; and the Schmidt Baking
Co., which delivers to Giant grocery stores in Lorton and
Springfield.
Some of the bread has been slightly dented or is excess. Much
is collected on or near the sell-by date.
McCracken said the sell-by date is misunderstood. “Many
Americans think of a sell-by date as an expiration date, but
that’s not true,” he said. They are meant to tell grocers how
long to keep items on shelves.
The “rescued” bread is still “fresh and good to eat,” said
McCracken.
Knights and volunteers hailing from St. Louis and other local
Christian churches collect the bread several days a week and
transport it to the various locations using a truck lent by
the St. Lucy Project. Most of the bread comes from the
Vermont Bread Co. and Bimbo, and McCracken estimates a total
of 2,500-3,500 bread-based items are donated each week.
It’s a simple ministry at the service of bigger efforts to
feed the hungry, said McCracken, who retired in 2003 as a
federal employee at the National Institute of Standards and
Technology. But McCracken is grateful to be part of an effort
that saves edible bread from going to the landfill and
nourishes people. “It’s an act of mercy,” he said. “It’s an
extension of what Pope Francis is calling us to do.”
