Are you looking for a non-profit organisation to donate to but are unsure which one to choose?

Breaking Bread is a small NPO based in Cape Town, South Africa. We work in the Salt River and Observatory suburbs, providing two meals every weekday to homeless people and others struggling to make ends meet. If you want to know more about what we do and how you can donate, we'll go into more detail in this blog.

Running an NPO During the COVID-19 Pandemic –

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit everyone hard, especially for those who have lost loved ones and/or their health. Additionally, hundreds of thousands are now unemployed as a result of this disease. The lockdown also brought about serious financial, physical, and mental hardships for millions of South Africans.

The silent voices lost in this increasingly painful period are the people who were already facing their own struggle. Cape Town's homeless community live every day without the guarantee of a meal or shelter. Disease and ailments are nothing new to them, but the threat of catching Covid-19 is just as real and worrying.

Breaking Bread works primarily with homeless people in the suburbs of Salt River and Observatory. And we can honestly say it's been an uphill struggle for our organisation to survive. Before the pandemic, we were making gradual but important steps towards sustainable funding. Then within a week, all our monthly business donations stopped.

The ban on international flights saw many tourism and volunteering companies close their doors, and this was a large part of our donor base. Additionally, without Swedish students, we don't have any volunteers or interns to work with us. Many of our previous volunteers and interns created fundraising events for us, and we also relied on placement donations from volunteering companies.

Fortunately, people kept us afloat via personal donations; otherwise, Breaking Bread would have shut down. If it weren't for these vital funds, we wouldn't be able to provide support for Cape Town's most vulnerable citizens.

We now face the most challenging financial situation to date, and we need your help to survive it.

You Can Donate Online –

We fully understand that people and businesses are struggling at the moment. However, if you're able to donate, you can do so via these options listed below:

• The Breaking Bread Donation page with EFT information here
• Our Backabuddy page (better for international donors)
• Our Forgood page (for services and food donations)

One of the benefits of working with a small organisation like Breaking Bread is transparency. Your donations only go towards purchasing ingredients, cooking the meals, and the wages for one employee. Our directors are unpaid roles; we don't have a rental outgoing or any marketing or advertising expenses.

Your money goes directly to our feeding the homeless people in our community, as well as running an Afterschool Programme. For us, this has always been about making sure people have at least one nutritious meal every day. We'll keep doing this as long as we're able to.

Become a Breaking Bread Champion –

In another blog article, we posted last year, and we discussed how people could become a Backabuddy Champion for Breaking Bread. You can read more details about this here, but we'll go over the basics in this section.

To summarise the general concept – if you're planning on raising money for a charity, you can do so on our behalf. This is just like the age-old sponsorship form for an activity most of us did when we were children. Only now, there's an online platform which can collect funds safely and securely.

Anyone who takes us up as their cause will have complete support from us, including help with setting up their campaign, as well as information about our organisation.

This isn't the only way you can raise funds for us. We're more than happy for individuals or businesses to undertake their own style of fundraising campaign or event. Breaking Bread is always delighted to work with ambassadors, which also means sharing our posts, blogs and events to your family, friends, and followers. Please contact us directly if you'd like to discuss this with us.

Food Donations Are Always Welcome –

If you live in Cape Town or the Western Cape, food donations always welcome. In fact, during the pandemic lockdown, physical contributions of food and hygiene products have been a lifesaving measure for the people we work with. Our director Sheradia is available to discuss what she regularly uses, which tends to be things like oats, rice and pasta.

We also encourage donations of toiletries, especially female hygiene products. If you're a manager of a supermarket or company, we'd gladly accept regular donations of goods on or past their sell-by-date. The Western Cape business community has been a friend to our organisation, and we'll gladly promote your business.

Breaking Bread is Community Development –

I think we speak on everyone's behalf by saying we hope things return to some form of 'normal life' soon. If we all chip in, stay safe, respect each other, and help the most vulnerable people in our community, better times will be here again. And we look forward to the day we can welcome our Swedish and international friends into Cape Town again.

Until then, we won't sugar coat our situation – we're up against it, and we need your help. Even if you can't donate, please share this blog. It does bring us to a broader audience. And if you have a large social media following, we'd love to get more exposure.

Please contact us, and we'll answer any questions about our organisation on the following details:

• Sheradia Brown: 0733458531
• Martyn Armstrong: martyn@breakingbreadcommunity.co.za  
• Fundraising: fundraising@breakingbreadcommunity.co.za