ent001423-005

TRUE BROTHERHOOD IN A LOAF of bread. Sounds strange, doesn?╟╓t it? It is. It?╟╓s the story of a Jewish show producer, a Catholic lawyer, a Protestant newspaper publisher, and a Jewish publicist with Minneapolis deeply involved. The saga starts in Las Vegas, Nevada and winds up in Minneapolis. A fellow named A1 Freeman handles publicity for the Sands Hotel in Las Ve- gas. He was wounded in Italy in World War II, suffered a periodic recurrence of a lung ailment. Last spring he was hospitalized in Las Vegas, and was literally starving to death because the oxygen he had to use made him nauseous and he couldn?╟╓t retain a bite of food. Then a Nun in the hospital fed him a piece of hot buttered bread. It was the first morsel of food he had been able to keep down for days. He lived on it for five days. Freed from his great hunger, A1 exclaimed to the Nun, ?╟úThis is truly angel bread.?╟Ñ After his con- valescence, A1 missed the bread and often went back to the hospital to get a loaf. The Nuns couldn?╟╓t sell the bread, but Freeman, like many other patients, left a generous gift. He also dis- covered that the bread was baked by Sister Angelita. THE SISTER?╟╓S RECIPE, he learned, had been in her family for 100 years in Germany. During the next few months, Freeman sent hundreds of loaves all over the country to friends and experts for testing. These testers agreed that Sister Angelita?╟╓s bread had something special. Al?╟╓s next move was to get the Sands Hotel and its Presi- dent-producer Jack Entratter interested in setting up the ?╟úAngelita Bread Foundation?╟Ñ as a charit- able project to be sponsored by the famous resort hotel. More than $14,000 was spent by the Sands and Entratter in testing and preparing the bread for commercial production. A wrapper was de- signed and a machine to mix huge quantities of dough almost as the Nun had mixed her daily 30 loaves by hand was devised. The first bakings of 1000 loaves a week were made in Vegas as a test. The sale there now runs at a capacity of 2,212 loaves a week and brotherhood enters the picture again, with the bread baked in a Jewish bakery and promoted by the Trustees of the Foundation, headed by Entratter and the Sands vice president Carl Cohen, both Jewish, plus Protestant newspaper publisher A1 Cahlan, Cath- olic lawyer John Mowbray, and Lutherans, Meth- odists, Episcopalians, Mormons and Baptists who are on the ?╟úAngelboard.?╟Ñ FIRST AIM OF THE unusual Foundation is to finish the expansion of the Rose de Lima Hos- pital which is run by the Sisters of St. Dominic and the building of a modern Cancer Research Laboratory as well as the most advanced operat- ing rooms in the world. When the project is finished, royalties from the bread go into the Foundation to build hospitals wherever needed around the United States. Our Sunday TRIBUNE ran portions of this story awhile back, and that story produced 317 telephone calls and 4200 let- ters from our area to Freeman in Las Vegas. From all the responses, Freeman took that of John Farley, chairman of the board of Regan Bakeries, as the most attractive. Said Farley, ?╟úWe need a good new loaf of bread in this business. I?╟╓m interested in working with the Sisters on this. I?╟╓m considered a pretty good Catholic.?╟Ñ Said Freeman. ?╟úFine, I?╟╓m considered a pretty good Jew. We have Catholics and Protestants already interested, so let?╟╓s get together and build some hospitals.?╟Ñ Regan?╟╓s board chairman, officers and chief baker went to Las Vegas, .watched the Sisters make the bread, then watched the bakers in Vegas bake it. There were scores of trips back and forth, plus the expenditure of thousands of dollars here developing the bread to the point where the Sisters couldn?╟╓t tell the difference be- tween the Regan bread and their own. THE BREAD HAS BEEN tested in this mar- ket with very little promotion and sales have been extremely successful so far. The backers wanted to be sure their business was based on taste rather than splash promotion. After the Angelita loaf has carved its success here, the Foundation will start working with bakers all over the country with the Minneapolis franchise and technique used as the model. The Foundation has already established plans, after finishing the Rose de Lima project in Nevada, to put up the finest hospital in the city where the bread got (OVER)