This project began when Highrock, an Evangelical Covenant Church, first moved to Arlington in 2006. Then, the bread was wrapped in the church by its members.

One of the children in church, however, has a severe allergy to nuts. Because Panera includes nuts in many of the sweets that are wrapped to go ith the bread, Highrock needed to find a new location in order to protect the child from possible exposure to the nuts.

When Highrock looked around to find a new space, they realized that the high school would be a perfect location.

{mosimage}Moving the bread wrapping to the high school cafeteria affirmed the statement on Highrock's Web site: "We want to challenge and encourage people to figure out how to make a difference around them by utilizing the opportunities, skills, and passions they already have."

For the first several weeks when the project moved to the high school last year, students in detention were sent to help with the bread wrapping.

Austin Calhoun, Make-A-Difference Ministry Director at Highrock, said that the students enjoyed their chance to "get out" of detention. Now, though, the group that meets every week consists mostly of members of the Interact Club.

"It's a fun and easy way to do community service," said one of the sophomore girls who asked not to be named. Students walking through the cafeteria after school are also encouraged to join.

For their work, each student gets about an hour of community service. When all the bags are finished, the students gather around the broken leftovers. After handling all the mouthwatering baked goods, they get a free sample of Panera's goodies.

The pieces at the bottom of the clean trash bag offer a tasty buffet of sweets.

Every week, Calhoun collects the day-old bread from the Arlington Panera when it closes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Even though the bread is still delicious, Panera chooses to dispose of it in order to serve their customers the freshest baked goods.

Highrock is not the only community project to take advantage of these leftovers in order to serve those in need. As the group of bread wrappers trickles into the cafeteria after school on Wednesday, they deposit their backpacks in a pile and troop out to Mark Genter's blue car to grab the bags of bread and boxes of Saran wrap.

On the way, Genter, a member of Highrock, asks the students about their classes and creates conversation around topics comfortable to teenagers. Once the collection has been unloaded into the cafeteria, the old hands don plastic gloves and create assembly lines of collectors, wrappers, baggers, and tie-ers.

The students keep working while talking about their day or about life. Although the number of students involved varies each week, most Thursdays there are about 10 students working to wrap the bread.

Calhoun said that in the 30 weeks since the project began, they have generated 1,800 bags, which averages at 60 bags per week. The record for number of bags created in one day is 81.

The bread wrapped at AHS each week goes to the residents of Menotomy Manor, a low-income housing community in East Arlington, near Alewife Brook Parkway.

Luke Chatburn, another Highrocker, works with the head tenant to hang a bag containing two loaves of bread and a sweet on each door. The head tenant, who represents the residents on the community housing board, keeps a map of who gets the bread each week and works to even out distribution.

Although some residents do not want the bread, most of them are appreciative of this extra help and look forward to the weekly delivery.

Saran-wrapped sets of three bagels each fill a trash bag, ready to feed homeless people at Starlight Ministry in Cambridge.

The bagels are a supplement to a meal cooked by volunteers for 60 to 70 homeless visitors each Thursday night. In looking to the future, Calhoun would love to expand the bread wrapping project to be able to serve more people. As long as the number of students involved keeps growing, more bread can be packaged. New workers are welcome to join the project.

The writer is a senior and journalism student at Arlington High School.