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Enacting positive change
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Posted on Oct 31 2019
Herman’s Modern Bakery has been socially responsible since it first opened in 1944, according to Michael Robert Guerrero.
“I believe we have been doing what we now call ‘corporate social responsibility’ since the bakery’s beginnings because my grandfather, Herman R. Guerrero, used to bake bread for the community,” he said.
That included giving away bread for free to the community and donating bread to the Mercedarian nuns for a number of years.
Over the years, the bakery has actively joined activities that help the community. “We are aware that the environment is very fragile…so we participate in beach cleanups and we have adopted (trash) bins from the Marianas Islands Nature Alliance, which means providing funds to keep the bins up and running,” he added.
To lessen the impact of human activity on the environment, Herman’s Modern Bakery is trying to eliminate plastic in their daily operations.
“We aim to be less driven on plastic items but it is a challenge with our bread as we deal with food safety and longer shelf life. With a paper bag, that is going to be difficult, but we are finding ways,” Guerrero said.
“We do offer reusable bags [at the bakery] and we don’t use plastic stirrers anymore for our coffee. Instead, [we offer] paper straws for our drinks, paper cups for takeout, and we are doing our best to switch to paper bento boxes for our food,” Guerrero added.
Herman’s Modern Bakery involves itself with worthwhile causes such as the Governor Tournament of Champions and participates in different fundraising events that includes schools, medical outreach and various non-profit organizations,
Herman’s Modern Bakery also accommodates educational field trips to the bakery by public and private schools “so that the children will have an idea how bread is made. It also gives the children a chance to learn outside the classroom and experience something new,” Guerrero said.
As part of those educational efforts, the American Memorial Park did a history feature last Oct. 19, about the life and contributions to the community of Herman’s Modern bakery patriarch, Herman R. Guerrero, as part of the park’s feature on community icons.
