Poverty, Planning & Politics

In a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri called Clayton, Panera Bread just opened up a new store that runs completely off of donations from its customers. The motto over the counter says “Take what you need, leave your fair share." It seems like a pretty ambitious project. The hope is that while poorer customers will be able to access new food options while leaving what they can, the wealthier clientele will be able to leave a little more money to keep this social experiment in business.

This kind of project has great potential to help alleviate poverty by offering more substantial, healthy meals to poor families who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford them. And if it were to spread, then crime would no longer be the alternative to hunger in many cases. People would always be able to eat whether they were low on cash or not.

But, if this experiment spread to other stores and services, how far would the generosity of the wealthy spread with it, when it is a model based purely on the goodness of others? Would people who have always lived so easily be willing to start spending more on everything, or is their generosity limited to the occasional stop at Panera because it makes them feel good about themselves without having to face the reality of how extensive poverty in our country really is? Just how far can this model expand?

The new bakery is called “St. Louis Bread Company Cares,” based off of Panera Bread’s original name, which they still go by in their hometown of St. Louis. However, the experiment isn’t being funded by Panera Bread, really. The company’s nonprofit foundation is covering the operating costs, and if the project fails, the foundation will absorb the costs. But if the trial succeeds, Panera Bread will be expanding this “pay what you can afford” model to communities all over the country.

It seems as though the first of these stores was set up in Clayton after much thought and deliberation, as it is a community with a high percentage of people capable of giving back a little more. The suburbs of Clayton are no ghetto. But if the experiment were expanded to areas where there are more people in need than there are people capable of giving more, would it be able to sustain itself? And will it even be able to sustain itself in the rich suburbs of Clayton, where people can most certainly afford to help those in need, if they wanted to?

According to Denise Cerreta, the founder of a similar restaurant that has been able to stay afloat since 2003, “ultimately people are good.” I guess if Panera expands this experiment and funds restaurants like this one all over the country, we’ll see just how good people are. I hope Cerreta is right.

Thanks for reading. The photos above were provided by Lisa Watson of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

- David