Burrito Brigade: Helping the hungry, one wrap at at time

QuickTake:

Over more than 10 years, the group has grown and expanded its efforts to include “Little Free Pantries” all over the community and a grocery-store-style free pantry.

What began in 2014 as a handful of friends cooking in a Whiteaker neighborhood kitchen — shoulder to shoulder over chopping boards, bubbling pots and sizzling pans — has grown into an energetic grassroots food-aid operation.

The idea was simple: spend Saturday mornings rolling hundreds of hot vegan burritos. Then fan out across the community to deliver them to those in need on the two days when food insecurity hits hardest, and most other services go quiet.

From that homemade launch, the Burrito Brigade has evolved into a full-fledged nonprofit with a deep volunteer roster, steady partnerships and a donation pipeline that keeps costs remarkably low.

Most of what goes into the burritos — peppers, onions, fresh vegetables, beans, and even many of the tortillas — comes from grocery stores, farms and individual donors. Nearly everything else is bought at cost when possible. The operation remains almost entirely volunteer-run.

Since its founding, the Burrito Brigade has prepared and distributed more than 350,000 burritos and expanded its reach with two additional programs.

In 2019, volunteers began building and installing “Little Free Pantries” — small wooden cabinets placed in front yards across Eugene and Springfield.

Hosts stock and monitor them, keeping them filled with canned goods, pasta, cereal and other staples, while neighbors often add donations of their own. Fifty-five pantries are now in operation, some fancifully decorated into small works of art.

A few include mini-fridges offering fresh produce, pizza slices or portions of home-cooked meals. Locations now stretch beyond Eugene and Springfield, to Veneta, Cottage Grove, Oakridge and Creswell.

A third project followed in 2020: Waste to Taste, a rescue-food pantry at 1775 W. Sixth Ave. in Eugene. Set up like a small grocery store, it lets shoppers move through aisles and select what they need.

Open weekday afternoons by appointment, the pantry partners with local restaurants, bakeries and grocery stores — similar to Food for Lane County’s Fresh Alliance and FREX programs — to reclaim food that would otherwise be discarded. The appointment system keeps lines short and wait times low.

For Jennifer Denson, Burrito Brigade’s executive director, an almost-native Eugene resident who’s been involved since the organization’s Whiteaker-kitchen beginnings, it’s about keeping the barriers low, and the dignity high.