Shauna Devenport unloads a field of bread merchandise onto her porch in Salt Lake Metropolis on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023. Devenport has been gathering and inserting donated meals gadgets on her porch, six days per week, for greater than thirty years. Laura Seitz, Deseret Information
Shauna Devenport picks up donated meals gadgets from Catholic Group Providers in Salt Lake Metropolis on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023. Laura Seitz, Deseret Information
The guardian angel of 600 North remains to be at it. A hip substitute for the previous airline baggage handler couldn’t cease her, neither may wrist surgical procedure, nor shoulder surgical procedure. Passing 65 final 12 months positive didn’t gradual her down.
Shauna Devenport remains to be placing meals on her porch at 348 W. 600 North. And hungry persons are nonetheless selecting it up.
This manna for the homeless has been occurring for over 30 years now. Don’t ask Shauna for the precise beginning date. It’s as a lot a blur for her because the tens of 1000's of the poor, the down-and-out, the hungry and the needy which have filed in and off her porch.
Suffice it to say she was so much youthful when many years in the past a neighbor recruited her to assist with an October meals drive known as Share the Harvest. The article was to distribute the excess meals folks had of their gardens and cabinets to those that may use it. This additionally included native grocery shops.
When Shauna was dispatched to a Smith’s meals retailer in Bountiful, the next trade happened:
Shauna: “I’m right here to choose up the surplus bakery for Share the Harvest.”
Retailer employee — as Shauna is filling three buying carts with days-old loaves of bread and different baked items: “I want we may have someone are available in and do that daily as a result of we simply throw this out.”
On the way in which again to the gathering website, Shauna recollects one other trade that happened:
“I acquired in my little truck, simply me, radio’s not on, I hear this voice: ‘It is advisable do that.’ I stated, ‘No, no, I’m too busy.’ So I had this dialog with God all the way in which again to the location and I’m arguing the entire method. By the point I get again I’m in tears and I am going, ‘Tremendous, I’ll do it, however you higher discover me assist!’”
That’s how she turned the Bread Woman.
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Shauna Devenport picks up donated meals gadgets from Catholic Group Providers in Salt Lake Metropolis on Monday, Jan. 30, 2023.
Laura Seitz, Deseret Information
She’s been at it ever since. She did it all the time she was a baggage handler on the airport and she or he continues to do it now that she’s retired from that profession. The Bread Woman’s hours stay the identical, although, as a result of as Shauna factors out, “It was a full-time job after I was working a full-time job.”
The porch meals marketing campaign has developed via the years. With the appearance of the Utah Meals Financial institution, grocery shops now give nearly all of their extra there. Now, Shauna collects surplus from the Bountiful meals pantry day by day and makes positive it will get to the locations the place those that should not patrons of the Utah Meals Financial institution search for sustenance. She makes her rounds of Hildegarde’s pantry on the Episcopal church, the Rescue Mission of Salt Lake, Catholic Group Providers, the Salt Lake Metropolis Mission on Redwood Highway, and, finally, the entrance porch on 600 North.
She’s made it her life’s work to assist feed — and dress — those that would possibly in any other case slip via the cracks.
That is hardly the primary time she’s been written about or featured on tv or social media. Over time any variety of information retailers have finished tales on “the Bread Woman.” The lady who feeds the unlucky, on her personal, and not using a basis to fund her or a PR company to publicize her, is a perennial really feel good story.
However she is a troublesome individual to pin down for an interview. It took a month to rearrange this one. She confesses that reward and acclaim have by no means been her intention.
“I don’t want the eye,” she says.
So why does she do what she does?
The Bread Woman pauses, then produces this stream of consciousness:
“You recognize there was a ebook got here out some time again known as ‘The Secret.’ I believe they charged like $16.99 for the little ebook. I stated all they ever needed to do was come ask me, as a result of the key to life is giving service and essentially the most egocentric individual on this planet ought to take into consideration giving service since you get far more in return than what you give. It’s like tenfold. And whenever you get pissed off and also you’ve had sufficient of the negativity and also you’ve had sufficient of the rudeness and seeing people who find themselves pissed off with life and so they don’t know tips on how to change it round to be completely satisfied, or to seek out happiness in one thing small, or pleasure, or hope, and also you assume, ‘if I’m going to get all the identical folks in sooner or later, I’ll stroll away’ — then you definitely get someone who reveals up that's so grateful and that’s whenever you say, ‘because of this I do it,’ ‘because of this I do it.’”
As a postscript, she provides, “Folks neglect how easy life needs to be. We make it so difficult, particularly on this nation. Now we have such an entitled perspective and it’s like ‘I would like extra, I want extra’ … and we throw away an excessive amount of meals; it’s now approaching 50%.”
Her trigger is to place a small dent in that proportion. For proof of that, if you happen to’re in Salt Lake, drop by her porch and see for your self. Assist your self to a loaf of bread, or a donut, or a banana, or perhaps a burrito that was on the shelf at Maverik yesterday. Everybody’s welcome.
And for the file, the Bread Woman has had helpers alongside the way in which every now and then: her husband Jeff, as an example, and their 4 youngsters and grandchildren, and the occasional good friend and neighbor. However the one fixed has been Shauna. Her and God.