2 couples. Their personal vehicles. A single provider. A single recipient. A single red cooler. And one very skeptical pastor. That's how it all started.

On Nov. 21, 2011 Mike and Jean Baumann picked up frozen fried chicken from the KFC at Louise and 41st in Sioux Falls and delivered it to the St. Francis House.

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We built slowly. 31,000lbs of food in 2012. 70,000 the next year. By 2017 an E-350 Cargo Van was decked out in Bread Break colors and running 11 routes per week. That's the first year that Bread Break looked like it does today. We collected more than 200,000lbs that year and saw exponential growth in providers, recipients, and volunteers. 

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We now have 48 providers donating more than 20,000 pounds of food per month delivered to 41 non-profit agencies.  

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Through 2019 we have harvested over 1,039,596 pounds of food and produce with a value of 1.933 million dollars.

2012 St. Francis House Instrument of Love Award

2017  Spirit of Volunteerism Group Award sponsored by The Helpline Center

2019 Sioux Falls Facial Hair Foundation Charity of the Year

2019 100+ Men Who Care Donation Recipient

​We calculate our impact in four ways:

1. Tax Write-off for Businesses

2. Reduction in Food Budget for Recipients

3. Matching Funds- certain recipients

4. Landfill- To date 1.3 million pounds

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Bread Break tracks every pound of food it collects. Businesses are able to deduct those donations from their taxes at a value of $1.67/lb (feedingamerica.org). Recipient organizations are then able to offset their budgets. In some cases, our relationship is so significant that those organizations are able to add staff and programming as they begin to rely on our efforts. Still others are able to procure matching funds for the donations we provide. In 2018 one organization was able to leverage our impact into a $152,000 grant from their national body. And, our final impact effects every citizen of the City of Sioux Falls. Today, we've reduced our impact to the local landfill by well over 1.3 million pounds.

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Using those calculations we are able to arrive at the following conservative estimates:

In 2018: $686,000.

In 2019: $635,000.

Bread Break does not generate any income. While we pride ourselves on keeping our costs low and multiplying contributions by more than a hundredfold, we do rely on the generosity of charitable organizations and individuals to offset our costs. This is just a small sample of those who have participated in our ministry:

Community Foundation Grant for an E-350 Cargo Van

Gift from the Thomas and Northdurft Families of a Ford Transit Connect Van

Down Home for the Holidays

Bill Green

Jerstad Family Foundation

The Members of Messiah New Hope Lutheran Church

Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

100+MWC

Sioux Falls Facial Hair Foundation

Sioux Empire Fund For Hunger Relief of the SF Area Community Foundation. 

ELCA World Hunger Domestic Hunger Grant program.

Bread Break, like so much of the world is still recovering from the impact of Covid-19. In September of 2020, Doug Dreke took over as our Interim Coordinator and began ramping operation back towards pre-Covid levels. We currently have a dozen volunteers running 8 routes, 11 volunteers working on our Bread Break Board, and a half dozen meeting each week to sort and distribute sweets.