Statement from CAFB CEO Radha Muthiah on the passing of CAFB co-founder Father Eugene Brake
Along with so many others at the Capital Area Food Bank, I am deeply saddened at this week’s passing of Father Eugene Brake, one of the food bank’s co-founders.
Father Brake, a cherished member of the CAFB community for decades, was among the interfaith leaders who recognized a growing need for emergency food in the region following significant cuts to government assistance programs in the late 1970s. With grit and determination, Father Brake and others, including CAFB’s first CEO Lynn Brantley, set to work gathering food from local grocers and growers, and distributing it to those in need. Together they laid the groundwork for CAFB to open its doors – with great intention – on Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday in January of 1980.
Father Brake was a tireless champion for the needs of people in low-income communities. Growing up in poverty in Delaware, he later devoted his life to the service of those experiencing hunger and homelessness in the Washington region, working and often living in the places of greatest need.
He was a man of great faith, and also a man of great action. Everyone in the CAFB community who knew him describes him as a person constantly on the go (Father Brake himself was fond of calling himself “Fast Brake”). In the early years of the CAFB’s founding, that meant driving around to collect food in an old pickup truck and taking it to people who needed it, sometimes fielding calls late at night from those seeking help.
Later on, when the food bank had its own fleet of trucks and drivers, that meant doing whatever was needed, from painting something in the warehouse to building new desks for a reconfigured office when space was getting tight. All of this was performed with an air of cheerful urgency, a sense that whatever he was doing in that moment to support the organization’s mission could not wait.
Father Brake once said “All I ever wanted was the same opportunities for everybody. That’s what drives me. It’s the very nature of Christianity.” By all accounts, that sentiment shaped every aspect of how he approached his life of service.
I am incredibly proud that the passion for equity that drove Father Brake to help lead the food bank’s founding is still woven into the fabric of the organization today. His “can do” spirit, his deep commitment to the community, his fierce belief that all people deserve the same chance at a good life, and his understanding that food underpins opportunity and is one of our most essential human rights all live on thanks to his unyielding efforts.
He made a profound difference for millions of people during his life, and through his legacy, he will continue to do the same.