ALL YOU KNEAD IS LOVE

Bread Run, a food distribution programme by local charity Food from the Heart, gives the needy unsold bread that is safe for consumption and would otherwise be thrown away.

- Kevin Lim

Mr Mark Khor and his teenage sons, Wayne and Zayne, are on the run.

It is 9.50pm on a Tuesday at Causeway Point. Closing time is 10pm.

As shoppers prepare to leave the suburban mall, the trio arrive. They head to a bakery on the ground floor to collect unsold bread.

The 51-year-old accountant and his sons are volunteers with the Bread Run programme by local food charity Food from the Heart (FFTH).

FFTH was started in February 2003 by then Singapore-based Austrian couple Henry and Christine Laimer. They were inspired to channel surplus food from bakeries to families in need after they read an article about bread wastage.

Every day, rain or shine, volunteers collect perfectly edible, unsold bread from their assigned bakeries or hotels and deliver to people who need it.

There are about 100 bread run routes from donor to bread distribution points - daily, with some volunteers taking on more than one route in a day.

As the first bakery has no unsold bread, Mr Khor, 17-year-old Wayne and 15-year-old Zayne go to a second bakery in the basement.

With two big plastic bags full of bread in tow, they return to their car. After a 15-minute drive, Mr Khor rings the doorbell of a nursing home in Woodlands.

A nursing staff member appears and takes the bags.

Mr Khor learnt about the programme in 2022 from a friend who volunteers as a "bread runner". He decided to join it in memory of his father, who died in December 2021.