Philanthropist's Roots Reach to Jamaica

Mary McLaughlin isn't trying to feed the world. Just Jamaica.

The Winnetka resident started Trees That Feed Foundation in June 2008 with the hope of planting thousands of fruit-bearing trees in Jamaica, Haiti and the tropical world.

"I used to believe that the breadbasket of America and Europe could feed the world, but now I think we've got to help people feed themselves," she said.

To paraphrase the popular saying, give a man fish, feed him for a day. Plant a family a breadfruit tree, give them food for life.

McLaughlin said Jamaica once flourished with the plant, but hurricanes, a low replanting rate and a shift in dietary habits that favors unhealthy processed foods, the breadfruit has been on the decline. 

It's a trend that Trees That Feed hopes to reverse.

McLaughlin began her career as a geologist, specializing in petroleum exploration. In 1994, after moving to Illinois, she opened McLauglin Glaze Ware workshop in Northfield, painting high-end enamel boxes and fine china.

"I'm the poster girl of changing careers," said McLaughlin, who celebrated her 60th birthday on Sept. 2. "You only get one life, so you might as well do as many of your loves as possible."

McLaughlin speaks in a lilting accent that one might mistake for Ireland, but she grew up in the Jamaican countryside. She left Jamaica in the 1970s during the tumultous reign of socialist Prime Minister Michael Manley, but still feels ties to her native island that go beyond her dual citizenship.

"We would never have left, our families had been there since shortly after [Christopher] Columbus," she said. "But now I want to give back, not just to Jamaica, but the tropical areas where so many of the world's poor live."

Breadfruit is unlike any produce you'll find in the United States. Related to the inedible hedgeapple, the fruit is not juicy but fits into the food pyramid like bread or potatoes.

"It's pretty high in Vitamin A," said Nyree Zerega, a biologist at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. "It's a starchy crop with a lot of carbohydrates. … It's easy to maintain once they get started; hardy and resistant to fungi."

In just over a year, McLaughlin said her Trees That Feed has successfully delivered 550 breadfruit trees to Jamaica, where they have been planted at schools with the help of the Jamaican government.

Children there learn the nutritional and ecological value of the breadfruit, an island staple since the plant was imported by Capt. Bligh of Mutiny on the Bounty fame during the American Revolution.

"Even in urban areas, people like to plant mangoes, breadfruit and akee," said Paul Virtue, McLaughlin's brother and executive director of the foundation.

Virtue and McLaughlin hope to soon begin distributing trees to small farmers and then hop across the Caribbean to Haiti, where deforestation is a particularly bad problem.

"[My sister] came up with the idea that she would reforest with breadfruit, something people would value, like Brazil nuts in the rainforest, and not chop down," Virtue said.