The Grateful Bread
The Grateful Bread
Founded in 2017, the Grateful Bread is a group of friendly volunteers who organize the collection and free giveaway of new or good quality clothes, shoes and accessories, bedding, toiletries and miscellaneous household goods to the needy. Our mission is to bring together Bermuda’s residents from all racial and social sector backgrounds to help heal divisions in our community – “One Love” Bob Marley is our theme song.
There is a huge need in Bermuda for the less fortunate to receive free giveaway goods given the extremely high cost of living here. There are thousands of people in Bermuda who cannot afford to purchase basic goods. We organize and sort a monthly collection of goods at a Mills Creek container (storage donated free of charge) and then give them away at Free Giveaway events at St. Andrew’s Church Hall on Church Street (next to People’s Pharmacy) attended by hundreds of guests; the next one is scheduled for Saturday November 16, 2024 (1 pm to 4:30 pm; volunteers set up at 11:30 am).
The Grateful Bread currently collaborates with Home, a registered charity founded in 2021 whose mission is to end homelessness in Bermuda. Led by PWC Chair Arthur Wightman and the former Sunshine League head Denise Carey, Home is getting our sleep roughers off the streets and relatives’ couches and back into leading meaningful lives with jobs and safe shelter. The Grateful Bread supports Home by providing our supporters with the information they need that motivates them to give.
In the past 5 years, in addition to our Free Giveaway events, the Grateful Bread has also various community action initiatives including:
- Monthly dinners and a social celebration and free giveaway for the needy for 3 years (2017 to 2020). Some of our guests commented that it was better than their Christmas.
- Causing our supporters to donate $248,000 to the Coalition for the Protection of Children (2020 -2022) to help 70 deserving families in desperate need in in the midst of the Covid-19 and job crisis; monies went towards groceries, rent, electricity and internet bills, as well as medical and laundry costs.
- the purchase of over 45 Chromebook laptops for families who could not afford them for their public-school children to engage in remote learning
- the donation of over 20 boxes of reading books to Westgate Correctional Facility library and many more children’s books to public school students at all grades.
Currently we collaborate with the registered charity Home whose mission is to end homelessness in Bermuda, noting there are 811 persons registered as homeless in Bermuda, both on the streets and in cars, sheds, relatives’ couches and floors. Home has successfully returned many homeless persons to meaningful, productive lives. The Grateful Bread supporters have so far donated $8,200 to Home and are thinking of creative ways to engage Home’s residents to do odd jobs (paid) and volunteer work at our events.
Join the Cause! Contact Juliana (supported by staff and resources at Canterbury Law Limited), Nicolle, Kristine and Tamara and the friendly group of hundreds of volunteers. Email gratefulbda@gmail.com to help, we would love to have you on board!
The Grateful Bread is not a registered charity and we do not solicit or receive funds. We rally our supporters to purchase or donate items for others for free and to donate funds to other registered charities for great causes with whom we collaborate. That way 100% of everything we gather goes to our guests and 0% gets spent on administrative expenses.
The Grateful Bread in the news
http://www.royalgazette.com/news/article/20180702/best-we-must-bridge-racial-divide
http://www.royalgazette.com/lifestyle/article/20171227/needy-grateful-to-grateful-bread
http://www.royalgazette.com/news/article/20171223/sense-of-belonging-for-needy
http://www.royalgazette.com/news/article/20170126/grateful-bread-initiative-to-feed-needy
The Grateful Bread in action
The Grateful Bread partners with Coalition for the Protection of Children (2020-2022): Families Supporting Families Project
This Canterbury Law community action initiative founded by Director Juliana Snelling was created in April 2020 when The Grateful Bread feeding programme had to be temporarily suspended due to Covid-19. In collaboration with the charity The Coalition for the Protection of Children, The Grateful Bread’s Families Supporting Families project was formed.
For families who have been hard hit by the pandemic, our Grateful Bread supporters rallied to the call to financially assist in meeting each family’s specific needs for rent, groceries, electricity and internet bills for their children’s remote learning.
The CPC provided anonymous biographies of parents and their children with the details of their needs. Families were given anonymous names such as Perseverance, Gratitude and Strength. Supporters read the details of the families’ biographies to pick a family of their choice to support and caused their groceries, rent, utility and laundry bills to be paid.
Images and Thank You Notes from Families
Article links to local news agencies:
https://www.royalgazette.com/news/article/20201221/families-thank-fundraisers-and-a-charity-for-help/
https://www.royalgazette.com/other/news/article/20200721/grateful-bread-drive-helps-20-families/
https://www.royalgazette.com/other/lifestyle/article/20200505/real-life-bermuda-that-makes-you-cry-2/
https://www.royalgazette.com/general/news/article/20221021/partnership-raises-almost-250000-to-help-children-suffering-hardship/
The Grateful Bread is thrilled to report on the success of its collaborative project with the Coalition for the Protection of Children (CPC) through the Grateful Bread’s Families Supporting Families Project during the period 2020-2022.
Since the pandemic, the CPC has seen a 170% increase in need for hardship support. With retail and hospitality heavily impacted, many families in Bermuda were left underemployed and finding it difficult to make ends meet, not to mention, suffering the added stress of keeping up with the demands of online schooling.
Thankfully, The Grateful Bread stepped in and offered to work with the CPC in a program devised by The Grateful Bread called Families Supporting Families.
The CPC summarized how identified deserving families were struggling and outlined the various ways in which they required assistance via anonymous biographies, to respect their confidentiality as a client. A list of families and needs was created by The Grateful Bread and supporters were asked to give to specific targeted needs of families in $50 increments.
The GB supporters rallied behind over 70 of those families and supported them with payments towards their groceries, rent, electricity, water and gas bills, transportation, educational endeavours, medical support, toiletries, baby items and laundry costs. 188 children in these families were positively impacted by the kindness of total strangers. The project also resulted in The GB supporters purchasing and gifting over 45 Chromebook laptops for families of public-school students who could not afford them for remote learning.
Through the project, families were not evicted, they were less stressed by food insecurity, and students had the tools they needed to work in an online learning environment.
The Grateful Bread received lovely thank you letters from families and their kids for caring about them and helping to lighten their burdens and these were shared with supporters to show that their gifts were well received.
Run by The Grateful Bread founder and Canterbury Law Director Juliana Snelling, a total of $248,000 was raised over the course of 2 years for families by The GB’s dedicated and caring supporters. 100% of these donations went directly to the families with no administrative costs taken.
The CPC and the Grateful Bread are mutually thrilled by the partnership they have shared. The collective impact from community effort is the way of the future to get the help that the less fortunate so greatly need. The CPC’s sincerest thanks go out to the many compassionate individuals who have supported our families, we would like to thank you on behalf of our families and let you know that you are truly appreciated!
How to get involved :
Email gratefulbda@gmail.com or by work phone +1 (441) 296-8444 c/o Canterbury Law Limited
The Grateful Bread is not a registered charity. We do not solicit funds from the Bermuda Government or public sources. Instead, we cause supporters of The Grateful Bread to purchase and donate goods (e.g. toiletries, good quality second hand clothing and household goods) to the cause of helping out. The Grateful Bread never sees, receives or handles funds. That way zero percent of dollars are spent on administrative expenses and 100% are spent on supplies.
