How a Providence Day athlete is trying to change the world one loaf of bread at a time

Luke Manna doesn’t have much free time.

On weekday mornings, the 17-year-old rising senior runs with Providence Day’s cross country team. By the afternoon, he’s turned his family kitchen into a bakery, making breads and pastas to sell online through Manna Breads. He drives to deliver the baked goods himself, and once the proceeds come in, Manna uses that money to buy baking supplies and puts the rest of it into buying groceries and making lunches for Charlotte area families.

Manna has been baking for charity since last summer, but his business and partnerships with local nonprofits RunningWorks and Families Forward expanded when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March. Manna Breads has since turned into a “full-time” operation, he said.

“Although it’s difficult sometimes,” Manna said. “I think that it actually kept me sane.”

Baking the bread

Manna’s love for baking comes naturally.

Though he’s primarily self-taught, his roots in the kitchen come from his Italian family. He grew up watching his Nonna, Tina Manna, cook for him and his cousins. His Nonno’s (grandfather) family were bakers in Italy.

“That was kind of an inspiration for me to start,” Manna said. “I think about that sometimes when I bake. But as far as actually learning the whole process, they live in Massachusetts, so I kind of have to say I learned that all on my own.”

Manna started getting serious about baking in his early teens, baking bread for his parents and younger brother, Holden. He refined his skills and eventually branched out to share his goods with other people.

His first patrons outside of family were his cross country teammates at Providence Day. Manna shared homemade bread with friends after summer practices and soon realized that it was a hit among the team. Once he started selling the bread, he said he wanted to do more with the profits than keep them for himself.

“I thought this is great and all, but what if I took this and put it toward something good?” Manna said.

Building a business

The quarantine bread-baking trend translated into a bread buying influx for Manna Breads, which started seeing an uptick in sales this spring.

Due to the increase in orders, Manna said baking now takes up full days in his family’s kitchen in Charlotte. He doesn’t have industrial cooking appliances — every loaf is coming out of a standard oven. The kitchen gets hot, his feet often ache from standing all day, and his family can’t help bumping into him from time to time as they search the kitchen for whatever they need.

But the added challenge from a boost in sales — and more time in the kitchen — isn’t a burden for Manna, who said the range of customers he’s able to serve is a rewarding part of the business.

He recently drove about 45 minutes outside of Charlotte to make it to the last customer on his route. He saved the best loaf of bread for a woman he’d never delivered to before and said he cried as he drove back from the delivery.

“I realized, just looking at her house and where she was living, it’s not just the wealthy families in South Charlotte that are buying from me,” Manna said. “It’s everyone. People have brought my products from every walk of life.

“I’ve learned that the more that I do this, there is good in everyone. All they need is the channel and the opportunity to put it out there.”

Giving back

As soon as Manna noticed an increase in sales this spring, he emailed Meredith Dolhare, founder and executive director of RunningWorks, a Charlotte nonprofit that works with the homeless and at-risk population in the area.

Manna knew Dolhare from running with her son, Noah, at Providence Day. Manna told Dolhare about his business and asked what he could do to partner with RunningWorks long-term.

She was impressed.

“My gosh, Luke, a lot of kids are at home playing video games right now,” Dolhare told him.

Each week, Manna buys everything from groceries, lunch food and baby formula for families in RunningWorks’ housing program. Then he delivers those supplies to their doorsteps — much like his bread business — and has grown close to the staff members and families he’s met. Dolhare said Manna delivers 20 sack lunches each week, in addition to his grocery runs for families.

“He knows that, yes, he can change the world one person at a time,” Dolhare said. “I think that’s the really beautiful thing about Luke Manna. He knows he can do it, and he’s one of those people that’s crazy enough to think that he can, and that’s what we need right now.”

Manna said his short-term and long-term goals are the same: He hopes for more orders and more opportunities to give back to Charlotteans in need.

No matter where he ends up after graduating next spring, he doesn’t want to stop baking.

“I hope that I can just continue this for as long as possible,” Manna said. “If it becomes impossible, or I go off to college, I’ll just direct that into another direction. We can just do our best to help others.”