Audio Bread for the masses (story audio) Photos Donated baked goods distributed by Harry and Shirley Kaiser fill their south Minneapolis living room and dining room. The Kaisers deliver every day to Peace House, a Minneapolis drop-in center where coordinator Tom Hooley greets them. Respond to this story Talk about this story in the MPR News Forum Submit a commentary Help us cover this story

Bread for the masses
by Dan Olson, Minnesota Public Radio
November 27, 2002

Donated baked goods distributed by Harry and Shirley Kaiser fill their south Minneapolis living room and dining room. (Dan Olson/MPR News)

For 20 years, a Minneapolis couple has collected day-old baked goods and given them to the needy. Every weekday, Shirley and Harry Kaiser make their rounds delivering the food to homeless shelters, the elderly and others. At 83 and 74 years of age, the Kaisers say they have no plans to retire.

Minneapolis, Minn. — One day, 20 years ago, retired postal worker Harry Kaiser walked into his neighborhood convenience store to buy a loaf of bread.

"It was all over the floor," Kaiser said, "so I started to pick one up and the guy says, 'we're gonna throw that so you better take one off the shelf.' I said could I get this stuff, and the guy says, 'I'll have to talk to the manager, and a couple days later I went over there and he says, 'yeah you can have the bread.'"

Harry Kaiser, raised during the Great Depression in a family with ten children, carried the day-old bread to a nearby shelter for homeless women.

"I didn't like to see that bread go to waste, and Incarnation House was on a limited budget and it just started to grow," Kaiser said.

	The Kaisers deliver every day to Peace House, a Minneapolis drop-in center where coordinator Tom Hooley greets them.

Now, five days a week, starting early in the morning, Shirley Kaiser, Harry's wife, makes the rounds of local supermarkets and loads up their blue Chevy wagon with day-old baked goods. Wearing jacket and gloves, her silver white hair topped with a hat to ward off the winter cold, Kaiser brings the donated goods to her south Minneapolis bungalow. Harry, wearing a battered green jacket and a baseball cap, helps her carry the boxes and bags.

Inside, every dining room and living room surface is covered with baked goods. There are breads and rolls of every description. Pies are parked on the dining room china cabinet. The day's collection includes dozens of small cakes that will go to a nearby children's home. Most of the dining room table is taken up with a huge cardboard box donated by a local bakery filled with rolls and donuts slathered with frosting. The Kaisers sort and pack boxes for the nine groups that receive the item.

"We prefer to go the smaller shelters, they get kinda overlooked," Shirley Kaiser says.

The Kaisers deliver to a nearby food shelf, a hospice for people with AIDS, a shelter for homeless women. Their stops include a neighborhood apartment building which Shirley says is filled with mostly elderly people living on a fixed income.

"The minute we bring a box in there, we're told that in five minutes it's gone," she says.

The Kaiser's favorite stop is Peace House. The gray brick drop-in center on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis' Phillips neighborhood is filled with men and women looking for a warm spot on a cold day. One of the regulars spots the Kaisers and greets them with the nicknames he's pinned on them.

"Harry Truman and the first lady Shari," he says.

Harry's face beams at the recognition and the banter.

Another drop in center visitor who sees the Kaisers every day says there are plenty of places where food is served but few where the people who donate stop to talk, a gift the man values.

"It's good, it's a blessed thing that they do this out of the kindness of their heart. Without certain people to donate and stuff like this to this place, it would certainly be a pretty rough time here," he says.

The baked goods brought by the Kaisers are whisked away. They're saved for the next morning when people who've spent a night, some without food or shelter, will return looking for a warm place and something to eat.

Shirley Kaiser, in her seventies, devotes fulltime to the bread collection. She's Harry's eyes. At 83, he's legally blind and has no drivers license.

"Now I'm fully retired so now we can spend all this time together. Keeps us busy and we love it," Shirley says.

As thanks, one of the shelters gave the Kaisers a pair of tickets to a touring Broadway show that came through town recently. Peace House invites them to the center's annual party at a local restaurant. Other than that, they take no money for their work.

Harry, a joker, wonders if that's such a good idea.

"I wish I would, I would been a millionaire," he says, laughing.

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