Dear Friends,

Gift of Bread is looking for a place to call home!

Our vision is to create a place that connects people and communities.

Gift of Bread is bridging the gap among those who are alienated from friends and family, lack informal support networks, and often have limited ability to access basic services. Sharing bread is an important community event that maintains that fundamental feeling of belonging, is socially responsible, makes good use of surplus food and helps the lives of many people around us.

In the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, we are all feeling the pinch of rising interest rates, stagnant wages and cost of living pressures. This is having a swift and significant impact on our lives and is causing anxiety, uncertainty, and disruption everywhere.

We are seeing a significant increase in demand from different demographics compared to this time last year. A recent SecondBite survey breaks down the increase: Unemployed people (67%), people experiencing homelessness (63.5%), single parent families (63%), older people (53%), people experiencing domestic violence (46%), culturally and linguistically diverse people (39%), people living with disability (38%), Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples (37%) and young people (36%).

At Gift of Bread our dynamic team of volunteers are still committed to social justice and stopping the waste. Everyday, we collect fresh surplus bread from bakeries and deliver it to those in need. We’re a grass roots charity run entirely by volunteers, ordinary people reaching out, doing the extraordinary with something as simple as sharing bread.

Gift of Bread is making the connections that build community. Over the next 24 hours our bread will reach 10,000 people. We share bread every day. We reach out to help the forgotten, the unknown, the vulnerable, the lonely, the isolated, the depressed and the most needy around us.

As the demand for our service increases the space limitations of the current premises limits our ability to increase production and expand our capacity to support the organisations and people that need it most.

You can only fit so much bread in a small space and we have a lot of clients on standby because we cannot process their orders. When this became self evident, we began to explore other potentially viable options.

Suddenly, we discover an amazing site for sale right in the heart of Marrickville. A place to call home that would provide the extra workspace we so desperately need and allow us to generate revenue because we will also be able to lease out any unused part of the building.

RIGHT NOW WE HAVE TO RAISE $3 MILLION IN 3 WEEKS. Based on price guidance from Ray White Commercial securing this amount will give us the opportunity to bid at auction on Thursday, 8 September 2022.

PLEASE MAKE A DONATION NOW – BEFORE THE AUCTION ON THURSDAY 8 SEPTEMBER 2022. Help us make a bigger impact, your generosity will have a positive effect and transform the lives of many people who are at risk in our community. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Engagement and collaboration is an essential part of the way we build community and work with our benefactors, volunteers and clients, both suppliers and recipients. If we are not successful with this purchase the money raised will go into a building fund for the purposes of purchasing another site.

Gift of Bread currently support over 250 organisations and we know there are many more who would like to receive bread from us. They will benefit from the increased output. With larger premises we will also have the ability to engage more volunteers and lighten the workload for our existing teams.

We recognise the opportunity to develop new and better ways to bring people together. While our new home will enable us to meet the growing demand for our services, volunteer working conditions will also be greatly enhanced with features that heighten wellbeing and healthy habits.

The larger ground floor area will have wider traffic corridors to manoeuvre bread dollies, secure undercover parking for our vehicles, sufficient space for new machinery to automate work processes and also give us ample storage bays for our constantly replenished inventory.

The second floor office spaces will have workstations and desks for administrative tasks and incorporate meeting, presentation and recreational areas.

Better spatial arrangements will provide workflow efficiency and enhance the social aspect of group activities. We will be able to engage more volunteers particularly people with physical or mental disabilities who are normally accompanied by a carer.

Our new home will enable us to build community and deliver on our mission in years to come.

Gift of Bread welcomes partners who share our values, identify with our cause and who want to support us.

Our aim is to develop relationships that bring value to both parties. We believe that good partnerships are aligned with common goals and are based on collaboration, mutual benefit and delivering change that will impact those who need it most.

THANK YOU for your contribution and helping us make our vision a reality, may God bless you for being a vital member of our team. 

Marcel De Maria

Co-Founder & Director