Unsold Fine Breads Given Away at Senior Center

When you have extended family living in the same house you try to mind your own business, but it’s hard not to notice what others bring in the door—especially when it’s food.

Shortly after we moved to El Cerrito in 2007, my mother, a senior, started coming home from her Monday morning activities with a loaf of artisan bread under her arm.

I asked, “What’s the deal with the bread?” and was told the in El Cerrito distributes bread donated by local bakeries and shops to seniors free of charge every Monday.

Over the next few years I watched as sour batards, olive and walnut rounds, bagels, baguettes, pitas, ciabattas and challahs went past me up the stairs to my mother’s part of the house.

Curiosity about details got the better of me, so I paid a recent visit to Adult Programs Supervisor Ellen Paasch at the Open House Senior Center. An energetic woman bombarded by phone calls, paperwork urgencies and even hugs as we chatted and walked around, Paasch keeps the center hopping in terms of programs and activities.

The bread pantry, part of a long tradition of food distribution by the Senior Services Division of El Cerrito’s Recreation Department, was developed jointly by center staff and volunteers some years ago. “When our delivery volunteer came to me asking if we wanted donations of bread,” Paasch explained, “I said, ‘Yes.’ ”

A volunteer visits donor bakeries each Monday morning and picks up unsold bread from the Saturday and Sunday before for distribution to seniors at 11 a.m. There are no income or residency requirements.

The program is carried out mainly by volunteers, with the lead volunteer, Obie Nash, the center’s former computer instructor, at the helm. Center staff members also pitch in.

Nash explained that the pantry takes place in the multi-purpose room, which is set up with tables and a rope line. As soon as the bread is ready, seniors—who are at this point queued up in the lobby—are invited to enter in groups of 10, where they line up for a short time before coming to the tables to make their selections. There is a limit of two loaves and six bagels, or three loaves, or 12 bagels, and one must have his or her own bag.

I asked how things were working.

“Some people are not used to standing in line, but it works fairly well now,” said Nash.

I stopped by to see the operation first-hand.

When I arrived on a Monday at 10:45 a.m., I came upon volunteers Fred Wehking and Locke You in the outer vestibule with eight giant sacks of bread, and a line of people snaked throughout the interior lobby.

Once inside, volunteers and long-time center employee, Raymond Finley, set things up in short order and laid out the bread attractively. Though I’m not permitted to disclose brands, we’re talking artisan bread produced by local, well-known bakeries. There were sour and sweet baguettes, sour batards, ciabattas, rye breads, bagels, wheat loaves and more.

About 40 people showed up for bread that day.

Nash, the epitome of calm, was chatting in German with my mother as she made her way through, simultaneously reminding people not to touch loaves indiscriminately and keeping tabs on goings-on.

The whole thing took 10 minutes, tops, and was very civil. In my two visits I saw only one person turned away nicely because she was not a senior.

Leftovers are used for the lunch program, though they’re not common as the economic situation forces bakeries to lower production and brings more people to the bread pantry. According to Ellen Paasch, the number of seniors coming in for bread has “gone from 12-to-15 to 30-to-45.”

This is an appreciated program. “People are very happy about it," Paasch said, and have asked her to “thank the bakeries for the wonderful things.” She encourages participants to freeze bread, and is pleased that they are able to discover breads they may not have tried before.

Let’s face it—good bread is one of the best basic foods to have on hand. That, some pasture butter and a nice cup of tea, and you’re eating well.

If you’re looking for creative ways to use up that half a sourdough round sitting on your kitchen counter, make a bread salad or a bread soup. Attached to this article, I’ve provided simple recipes for these goodies, which you are encouraged to alter to make your own.