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Imagine trying to cram 200 pizzas a week into your garbage.

That’s just the food overage from one local organization – and typical of many. For example, Little Caesars makes grab-and-go pizzas and puts them under the heat lamps, but food safety laws say they can’t sit out for more than 30 minutes. So, what happens to them after that? They get tossed into the trash.

But for nearly 15 years, Bread Break, a local nonprofit, has been recovering unused food like that and redistributing it to those in need in the community.

On a recent Friday morning, drivers from the nonprofit picked up food from places like Kwik Trip, Breadsmith and Flyboy Donuts. Some of it they brought back to Bread Break, which operates out of a multipurpose room connected to Messiah New Hope Lutheran Church. There, volunteers sorted it into individually packaged bags. Then, the food was loaded back up and taken to various places across the city. Union Gospel Mission. The Bishop Dudley House. The Banquet.

Three truckloads were dropped off at Church on the Street, which operates out of Falls Community Health in downtown Sioux Falls. Volunteers met with people and offered them everything from water to sandwiches to loaves of bread.

Carlene Sharkey was there, looking at the various bread, buns and more available.

“We come here every week,” she said, choosing a few items and tucking them into the empty baby stroller she uses to carry some of her belongings. She and her boyfriend come to pick up food that can be prepared without cooking. They eat a lot of bread and peanut butter. She’s lived on the street on and off for more than a year. “I never made enough money to support myself, and they help me. I always grab extra to help others. Some people won’t come, or they can’t get here. So, I bring some food to them, too.”

Pamela Cole, executive director of Bread Break, said they deliver food every day to help people like Carlene. Volunteers pick up food on 70 different routes from 100 locations.

A refrigerator in their sorting room is filled with pre-packaged plastic cups of watermelon and prepared sandwiches. Stacks of pizza boxes from Little Caesars are ready to be given out. Volunteers sort items from Breadsmith, Pomegranate Market and Panera. They hope to be able to store and distribute fresh produce soon, to further expand not only what they can offer but what they can keep out of the landfill.

For Cole, the mission is multi-faceted.

Last year, Bread Break kept 300,000 pounds of food out of the landfill, and they anticipate they’ll rescue more than 400,000 pounds this year. “This is helping the community, and helping people get through challenging times,” Cole said. She estimates they serve more than 20,000 people per year. It also saves the city money by keeping food out of the landfill.
 

John Nordlie, who was on the board at the start of Bread Break, said the need continues to grow and the limiting factors are storage and volunteer hours.

“I’m looking forward to the possibilities. We’ve just touched the surface,” Nordlie said. “There is so much more food that can be rescued.”

They recently began using an app that helps match available food and places to distribute it and integrates with their volunteers for efficiency. They also serve routes in Baltic, and they hope to open the model to other cities in South Dakota.

“One out of five people are food insecure,” Cole said. “And we throw away more than $300 billion in wasted food every year – that’s 38 percent of all edible food in the United States, and we just throw it away.”

The numbers are big, and so is the need. But Nordlie and Cole are passionate about what they do, and they believe there is hope. Earlier this year, Bread Break received a grant from the Community Foundation to build capacity and meet more needs.

“We know people need help in Sioux Falls. We see the need every day,” said Patrick Gale, vice president of community investment for the Community Foundation. “It’s gratifying when we know our support can help them grow and do more meaningful work.”

For Cole, the grant will help them expand services and increase outreach, all in the name of maintaining a sustainable model to help connect people to food.

Back at Community Health, volunteers from Church on the Street greet people in line, sometimes by name, and suggest different food items to them. Guests take bottles of water, reach into coolers for prepared sandwiches and take loaves of bread off shelves.

In a side room, volunteers sort boxes of food Bread Break has dropped off. It’s this that Cole and Nordlie say reminds them of why they do what they do.

“If we could rescue all the wasted food, there is no reason anyone would go hungry,” Nordlie said.