He co-founded the Capital Area Food Bank and risked arrest while protesting outside the Pentagon, the Soviet embassy and the Lorton prison complex in Virginia.
Father Eugene Brake, center, outside the U.S. Capitol with other organizers of an interfaith food collection effort. The group, which included the Rev. Lloyd G. Fennell, pointing at the sign, and the Rev. John Steinbruch, wearing a hat in the back, ultimately gave rise to the Capital Area Food Bank.
As Congress and the Reagan administration slashed funding for the food stamp program, now known as SNAP, the food bank grew to help fill the void, eventually moving into a bigger warehouse, opening a second location in Lorton, Va., and partnering with local organizations to pair food with health care, job training and educational programs. The group said it distributed 73 million pounds of food last year, half of which was fresh produce.
Friends joked that he subsisted entirely on peanut butter and crackers, washed down at times with a Diet Pepsi. He seemed to bike or walk everywhere he went.“Life had a kind of beautiful simplicity for Gene,” said Grant P. Thompson, a consultant to the food bank. “He was one of those people who was a little bit easy to underestimate. Not highly educated, not sophisticated in any kind of way.
By then, Father Brake was an old hand at using dramatic demonstrations to advance his cause. He was arrested four times during antimilitary protests at the Pentagon, including a 1977 demonstration in which he was said to have joined Father Philip Berrigan and other activists in throwing “human blood and ashes on the floor, the doors and the ceiling” of the Pentagon concourse, according to United Press International.
For the next two decades, his advocacy continued unabated, including at the food bank, where he remained known by his priestly title.from CEO Radha Muthiah. “That’s what drives me. It’s the very nature of Christianity.”
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