GGM: When you first envisioned this event, did you think it would get as big and important as it has, or has it been a pleasant surprise?

WK: It’s more than a surprise. What it’s become is a shock. It’s a wonderful shock. It’s interesting. I’ve done events, including hunger events, big and small. We did a Jam Against Hunger Event at the Mall of America. Quite often we are involved with hunger stuff.

When the Super Bowl was coming (to Minnesota), it basically was, ‘Gee, I know all these chefs, I’ve friends at the Vikings that know players, here’s an idea, let’s try this. Cross your fingers and let’s hope it’s going to be successful.'

Successful, to me, was that it was going to be the number one event at Super Bowl in Minneapolis in 1992 and it would raise more money than any ‘charitable event.’  perhaps we could do this nice little party in Los Angeles the following year and in Atlanta the next year and so on. Maybe there’s this little piece of Minnesota that would end up at Super Bowl every year since the team won’t be there for awhile. (Laughter by one and all.)

My thought was let’s put on a successful event, let’s raise some money, let’s raise some awareness and let’s see if we’ve got something here. "Gosh, I hope its got legs to go to the next city and the next one. We netted and gave away $90,000.00 that year. The next highest was a $60,000.00, Ahmad Rashad charitable speech/dinner. However, we dwarfed all the rest of the charity events, and we only put it together in about 10 weeks. With that short time you couldn’t get a venue, they were all taken up by ‘stuff.’ It’s not as easy to say if we don’t fit in here, (Tampa) We’ll put a tent outside. In Minnesota in January you sure don’t.

The event literally took place in the atrium lobby of an office tower. Leeann Chin is a friend of mine, and has been for a long time, she has several restaurants and is kind of a story on her own in the Twin Cities area.

She was the only restaurant in the main floor area, but she was too small for us. It’s was a Chinese takeout place. We had to get half the chefs prepped in Anoka Hennepin Technical College kitchens. The other half prepared their stuff in the cafeteria of the NorWest, now Wells Fargo, Bank and we brought it all over to the atrium on the night of the event.

My vision for this event was let’s work real hard, pull this event together and have a great old time in the atrium of an office building. Maybe there’s an office atrium somewhere in Los Angeles we could do this too.

So from $90,000 to, 17 years later, having given away just over $8 million is quite a leap. To have gone from a $75 ticket to a $500, more importantly, to a scalped ticket, that I didn’t envision at all. I didn’t envision that we would have affected another $10 million in food bank contributions, by the other 10-11 events.

Then we did these brunches with the NBC cookbook this year. The first half of the season, every city that had a Sunday Night Football game, we did a brunch at the restaurant that was in the book representing that city. Raising money there and giving it to the local food bank in that city.

I don’t know if I would have spooked myself if I knew what it was going to look like now, 18 years later. I might have said, "Whoa, wait, let’s just do this one. I’ll head up bakes sales, but gee I don’t know." (He smiles broadly and we all laugh.)

It’s wonderfully shocking where this thing has gone. I keep saying okay, now we have a lot of things down. Now we’re ready to get started. We have this platform, we’re at the top of the heap. We’re the only pure charitable event out of 100 events at the Super Bowl and all year long. We’ve made these connections to other teams. We know the need and how we can affect food banks. We went from infant to young child and maybe adolescent and now we’re ready to put on big boy clothes. Now maybe we’re ready to make an effect.

GGM: Almost as if it is your coming out party.

WK: I don’t know. I’ve been working on the 20^th anniversary for about a year and a half now. It’ll be in Dallas. I’ve spoken with Roger Staubach, Troy Aikmen and the host committee there. They came again this year to observe what we are doing. The next great plateau is when we hit that 20 year mark. To really take a look and see what we’ve done and what is left to do.

GGM: It’s a milestone.

WK: It is, that’s a very good term for it. That’s where we’re at.

GGM: Quite a bit has been written about and by you. It is evident how important personal relationships are to you. That one on one experience. Grassroots. You have a lot of demands on your time, this isn’t the only thing you do. Given the numerous people you deal with, and you give a lot of yourself, both personally and professionally to get this done every year, how do you balance everything?

WK: The most important thing to me is my family. Time with family, now my kids are 25, 24 and 18.

GGM: They’re working with you now. Does that make it easier?

WK: Absolutely. Even before I was involved with all this, I did a lot with local stuff and the kids were younger. They participated. When my daughter Leah was 6, she worked with me at an event called Quarters for Kids.

The personal relationship that is most important to me is the example that you can give to your kids and your wife. My wife is the greatest human being ever. First of all through my business, I own a restaurant. We’ve been in business 26 years now. That’s a red flag right away. (Referring to the numerous hours and demands involved to be successful.) Her understanding of the industry has helped a lot. Her father was involved in the hospitality industry and they traveled around a lot.

GGM: This (TNFL) became that to the 10^th power.

WK: Yes, this is much more demanding, a lot of travel. You mentioned personal relationships. I’d rather spend a period of time one on one with someone that I think gets it or who I think I can convince to get it,  than a 1 minute conversation, pitches or sending out email or packages waiting for something to return.

I wouldn’t do well in Vegas. I’ve bet wrong on people from time to time. I think 'Hey this guy gets it,' spend a lot of time with him, and it turns out that he had different motives than I did. But I truly believe way more, that people are positive. I’d rather see the good in people. I’d rather get burned once in a while than not get near the match. Doing the right thing takes longer, it’s harder, it’s more stressful.

GGM: Sometimes it’s not well received.

WK: Too often people say it’s too hard and will take too long. I’m going to take the shortcut. I’ve missed out on a lot of stuff because ‘the bus passed by’ when I was focusing on the stuff like that. Everything is worth more if you take the time to do it right.

GGM: Each situation that you are in gets 100% of your effort. That’s a very rare trait in people. Some people just walk through the motions to get to the next thing. It’s evident right now while we are speaking with you. There’s got to be that time when you get back to your room or home and go, "I just need 5 minutes, ½ hour, 3 days, 5 weeks."

WK: I had that Monday night. (Laughter) I got back to the hotel and pulled up emails and thought well, I’ll at least respond to some of these. I was saying, "Wait, wait, wait....oh God." You kind of take a breath and then you have to answer them all.

GGM: That is part of balancing the demands and sacrifices of what you do to keep your integrity. That touched me greatly when I first spoke with you at the FRLA. People were swarming to speak with you, the line was quite long. My personal convictions regarding food banks and hunger issues drew me in. The essence of Wayne and how it has manifested itself into your mission to educate others about hunger and the Taste of the NFL.

WK: I appreciate what you said. This isn’t about me. Often enough I get uncomfortable when people say that I am generating this and I’m whatever. All I’m doing is presenting a cookie (pointing to the special TNFL cookie he brought us.) I’m saying why this is important. If you are kind enough, you’ll listen to my little thing for 30 seconds. What really makes all of this have such an impact and wonderful, is getting to the end result of helping more people. It’s not me. It’s the people that grab onto it along the way. They say, "Okay, thank you Wayne for telling me this and now I’m going to go and do this." That’s the multiplier effect.

GGM: I (Lou) agree with that to a point. On the outside looking in, everybody focuses on, let’s use the cookie, the cookie. All the questions are about the cookie and everything having to do with the cookie and you are glad to talk about the cookie. No one gets the fact that you drive that the cookie is presented. You aren’t looking for the accolades. The fascination for us, and I believe for our readers interested in charities, is there are very few people willing to sacrifice 100 % for the greater good of the situation they are in. However, you seem to be that person and that fascinates us. Let’s just say we are not focusing on you or giving you the accolades, but giving people an example on how they can do it.

WK: Let me put this back on you guys. What you just said is really important. You’re bringing out the fact of what one person can do. But what you are doing and your approach to what you're doing is also remarkable. You take a big risk by doing stories that don’t have controversy to them. That don’t have something ‘to draw the reader in.’ You’re looking for the good stuff, which to me accomplishes way more. You can keep telling people about bad people, bad situations, etc., and they’ll be enamored by it. They’ll stretch the story out for ever and ever. But the good story, more often than not, I think, that people will read about a good person or event and say "That’s pretty cool." But my hope is when you read about someone doing something good, it triggers something inside you to do smomething to.

GGM: It motivates an action in them. That’s what this is all about.

WK: There’s an organization in Minnesota called Bridging, Inc. the founder is in his 70's, more energy than the 3 of us combined. He came into the restaurant and thanked me for what I’m doing. I told him I’m not doing anything in comparison to what he's doing." He told the story of what inspired him. They gave stuff out to a family and one of the kids says to his mom, "Now we have these extra spoons and forks and we won’t have to share them when we eat."

The deepest and most compelling thing that keeps me going on this event, and yes, it’s Super Bowl, it’s glamour, it’s glitz and everything. But, what reminds me of why I do this is something that happened in Phoenix in ‘96. After the event, there was this photo op and when it was done the director of the food bank came up to me and asked if I had a minute. I said sure, and she introduced me to a mom with two kids, ages 6 and 4. Sometimes I have difficulty getting through this. (He chokes up here a bit)

The mom told me her son had something he wanted to say to me. I said sure. The boy said, "I don’t know what you do, but my mom tells me that what you do makes sure that we eat every day. He gave me picture of he and his brother. "Now we don't have to take turns eating."

It was just like the story of ‘Now we don’t have to share the spoon.’ That’s why we do all this. That’s the affect that I was so fortunate to see. You don’t usually see this. You write the checks and you assume it’s doing good things. That  was a defining moment for me.

GGM: The end result of your work.

(next column)

(cont.) 

WK: That’s where, when you’re tired, you say to yourself, "I can’t stop. Those two boys are counting on it." Now in this, the Perfect Storm of Need, people don’t realize that it’s that simple. Another time I was invited to speak in a school about charitable involvement. Afterwards, a kid thanked me for pointing it out. He said, "Sometimes it’s hard to learn because my stomach is louder than my brain." Another one said, "I sure hope you can keep doing what you’re doing because maybe then I won’t have to take turns with my brother eating."

GGM: This is America, how is this happening?

WK: I have yet to meet someone who is in a situation of need, who is saying to us, "Take care of me. I’m having a little hard time right now, but I want you to care of me from now on." They’re not saying that. They’re saying, "Give me that boost. Help me get through this."

GGM: Give me an opportunity to fix my situation.

WK: They’re not looking for a handout, they are looking for a hand up. The example I use is: When you were a kid on the playground and you wanted to go down the slide. You couldn’t get to that first step. You didn’t ask for someone to go down the slide and tell you how it felt. You wanted to do it yourself. All you needed was to get a hand onto the first step.

That’s what we are doing here. We are trying to find a way to get someone to that next step. Guess what's the most amazing thing I’ve seen happen? The very best, most dedicated, most active volunteers, turn out to be people who’ve been there. They turn around and help recognizing that little boost helped them.

That’s what we’re doing. That’s what you’re doing, by pointing out positive stories. You are inspiring people to say, "Holy cow, that guy does that and that. That’s great."

GGM: You have no idea how many people we’ve discussed this idea with that say, "What are you crazy? You’re relatively new, you need revenue as much as anybody else does. Why donate proceeds from this book? (referring to the book Wayne helped us with.) Why not keep the proceeds for yourself?

We tell them it’s not an option. They don’t understand that although we could use the revenue, the greater good is more important to us. This is our opportunity to contribute and bring awareness. When you are in that situation it is easier to give. It needs to be good business too.

WK: You have to run a responsible, profitable business as do I, in order to allow me to do this. I don’t want to give too much either to where I become a charity. It’s a balance. We are asked for contributions almost daily. We, as businesses have to focus on what we choose to support. My focus is on hunger and childhood nutrition.

We have three criteria in our company:

1. If it’s related to hunger or nutrition and someone comes in and asks me for a donation, let’s do it.

2. If it’s an employee whose involved with some charity, unrelated to hunger, but it’s an employee engaged in a particular community charity, let’s give it all the possible attention that we can. Hopefully we can contribute and donate. 

3. If it happens to be in the immediate geographic area of our restaurant. We won’t support all the high schools in the Twin Cities, but if it happens to be within striking distance of the restaurant, it makes sense. Let’s do that. Beyond that everyone can make their own choices. I know you’re doing great work up in Duluth, MN but it doesn’t make sense.

GGM: You support the microcosmic area of Minneapolis surrounding where you are. You are supporting your staff, which encourages them to continue to ‘pay it forward,’ irregardless of their cause. Finally you have the larger goals that you support as a member of the food and restaurant industry.

WK: This event, sports minded people love statistics. The big stage of Super Bowl, from the outside looking in, is a big deal, where we are with this. But I still get a great thrill watching the local St. Steven’s Church pull up at our bakery and we load misshaped loaves, or whatever. They pick it up and distribute it in the local area of that bakery.

Part of the "Perfect Storm" is that it is a small example so we can remain profitable. We have to continue to reduce the waste we are coming up with and manage things tighter so we don’t have to lay people off.

Then you take the big boys like the General Mills and the Kraft and ConAgras and they have the same problems. That’s why the food banks are having some trouble now. Those big donors are also operating more efficiently. They are giving less, not because they don’t care, but because they are producing less.

GGM: Maybe we are crazy. We have many in our local area that ask us for contributions, usually advertising, we have to be discerning on saying yes. When we spoke colleagues about doing this with you.. they wanted to know why? We explained.."Because you pick your spots and we have a chance to do something very big for hunger awareness."

If it’s not off limits, you said the other night that 'The Huddle' is your very favorite night of the year. Explain the dynamic of what that is for our readers, and if you would, share with us why it’s so special to you.

WK: All year long you email, you call, you send stuff back and forth. We plan the next year’s event at least 14 months out. We’re already deep into planning Dallas, our 20^th anniversary. We’ve got to start that far out. In March, early April, we gather the recipes for the next year’s event. If we do the book, we need to pull it all together with NBC. Same with the players. You have this communication, not sitting down, because we are in different places. Plus we work on the local events. The Cowboys do their local event in April, the Jets do theirs in May, the Bengals in June. It’s not all just during the football season.

We at Taste don’t do those events. We try to get the right people at the table, explain the parameters, give them examples and references. It’s their event, they price it the way they want to do it. The point is something is going on all year long. I didn’t plan that when I started this. You have the spirit of the event happening year long in some shape or form.

When you get into the room with all these people, who are probably more dedicated than me, this is their time to come together. It is almost literally a group hug. We have this private meeting and then this reception. In the private meeting we go through the logistics and give out awards. Then we have a story or two, there is a lot of emotion in this meeting. The reason it’s so special, is that it brings it all together. It says why we’re here, why we spend the money.

GGM: That for us is the story. Don’t get me wrong, Taste of the NFL is fantastic. People get so wrapped up with the names, the celebrities and chefs. 

WK: Yes, they do.

GGM: Some of the importance of the event can get lost in the mix. We want to spotlight beyond to the foundation of the event.

WK: The behind the scenes people that put this together are absolutely at or above the expertise or talent level of those chefs. They, the technicians, are the best that there are. We are working with individuals that are the best in their field in the world. The football players, the chefs, the technicians. 

WK: You guys will revel in the answers that you get for questions like ‘What does Taste mean to you?’ Taste has no employees, no salaries. The consistency of the spirit for this cause by these people will blow you away.

GGM: Is it okay to discuss your mom?

WK: I am the way I am because of my mom. My mom and dad divorced when I was about 12. It wasn’t a really good divorce and I was the youngest. Two brothers have passed away. Back in the day divorce was different. I always thought and continue to this day, "Why was there so much pressure put on this woman? She brought so much joy to a lot of people and could have, particularly to some guy.

However, my mom never put on a Super Bowl event or a big local event. But what she did, almost on a daily basis, was doing something for somebody. This little Polish community of Steven’s Point, Wisconsin. Not attending business meetings, but baking bread, visiting the hospital, going to church, whatever.

As a kid, it doesn’t sink in. I observed it all and she was wonderful to me. I would go with her as she cleaned offices at night. She taught me a work ethic without saying here’s what you do. The most important thing you can do for your kids is to realize that they are always watching.

The mark of someone’s character is how you treat someone that is not visibly important. How do you treat someone that is not on the front lines. Stars have a reputation of treating the help like the help. Wait a minute, those are the people that are making it happen.

My mother really gave me the example of how to really look at other people. She had simple expressions. Help when you can. You won’t always be able to help in every situation, but when you can, help.

She got sick the summer before the first event and she passed away three weeks before it. From her hospital bed she asked what I was doing. I explained and she wished me well. That was all she knew about it.

The other element that keeps me going is that I’m in a position that I can help. So I do.

GGM: How do you think your mom would feel about all this?

WK: (He smiles broadly) I can’t tell you how much I wish she could be at one of these. My sister came to the first one, so she’s seen it. Something keeps you going and that’s one of them.

GGM: In a roundabout way I believe you have created a legacy your mother would be very proud of and you're passing it on to your children. You are an example and how you live is teaching your mother’s lesson.

WK: I’ve been really blessed to give a great opportunity to my kids (Leah, Pete and Judith). My son heard an interview in Minneapolis this morning and called me. He said, "they talked about the event and you. They said some great things about you. Way to go."

That’s where the depth of impact really comes. When your kids realize that what time I’m putting into this or anything else, or what they put into this, how other people are viewing it, that positively. That rings volumes to what their next opportunity to helping out is going to be.

GGM: You may not look at it this way but you fulfill a lot of wishes and dreams. What does Wayne wish for?

WK: That I have the ability to keep doing it. I just hope that I am in a position to continue to do what I want to do around all this stuff for as long as it is still meaningful to someone.

Louis: I think how I’ll word your answer will be "I wish to continue fulfilling other’s wishes."

WK: And add to that, the hope that, in some way, what we’re doing with all of this, motivates someone else to say.  "I can fulfill wishes too. I can do that."