About | The Bear Food Story. . .
My name is Mac Brydon, & I am the Founder of Bear Food. Let me share with you the vision & history of this innovative company that reaches into the communities where few dare to go.
Since I was young, my parents always encouraged me to go after my dreams…& to dream big! I love basketball & set my sights to be on being a D-1 athlete. After much hard work, many hours of practice & lots of ice bags, I was offered a spot on the Mercer University basketball team in Macon, GA – the “Mercer Bears.”
After two years of playing, I concluded that breathing, eating, sleeping, living basketball wasn’t for me. But I fell in love with Mercer, the staff, & the friends I made there. I wanted to stay but how could I pay for a small private out of state school? That’s when I started Bear Food.
My parents are from Virginia. One of VA’s major cash crops is peanuts. 24 years ago, my mom started her own successful gourmet peanut company while living in Chicago. These were the biggest, most delicious hand cooked peanuts to be found & everyone LOVED them! Anything that’s of excellent standards would be welcomed anywhere, why not Georgia? But there was something more I wanted to do with my business, & it involved my best friend & older brother, Miller.
Miller has Down’s Syndrome. He had just graduated high school & had been struggling to figure out his next steps. Miller is smart, strong, funny, (and a great dancer!) but had never been given a springboard into life like I had with my college opportunity. This is the typical story for Miller & many of his friends with special needs & throughout America. More than 80% of this community is unemployed & I knew Bear Food could be a way I could help change this trend.
My lifetime experiences with this community have taught me that many in this population just need a chance or an experience to learn job skills, & that’s what we now do at Bear Food. This is a perfect way provide training, encouragement that sense of purpose that we all need.
Thank you for helping us bring extraordinary peanuts from extraordinary hands t
-Mac Brydon, Founder
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