Reaching out with rescued food

Gift of Bread
Committed. Inspiring. Compassionate.

Driven by a spirit of compassion, Marcel De Maria has laboured to establish a charity that rescues thousands of surplus bread loaves and rolls every day and shares them with people in need.

He started Gift of Bread in 2007, run entirely by volunteers they supply bread to more than 200 sites, including refuges, boarding houses, nursing homes, community groups, soup kitchens, food vans, special schools, churches and outreach programs.

"We believe it's important to extend the meaning of community, especially during hard times," says Marcel.

"When droughts were affecting our farmers, we supplied excess bread as animal feed. When our nation was ravaged by fires, we delivered useful packs of water, fresh bread and other provisions for the firefighters. With the COVID-19 crisis we are still reaching out to the isolated, the lonely and the most vulnerable in our community"

Marcel is also conscious of the environmental benefit.

Last year, Gift of Bread rescued over 160,000kg of bread from landfill. "The greenhouse gas emissions would be equivalent to 74.4 years of electricity for a home."

Marcel always leads with innovative solutions. One of the challenges for homeless people is that they may not have anywhere to store a loaf of bread. So Gift of Bread is trialling their Snackbag project to supply manageable portions with a long term shelf life.

The program has proved popular and has growing demand, says Marcel.

Westfield Local Heroes are nominated and voted for by their communities, with the three top finalists per Westfield centre each awarded a $10,000 grant for their affiliated organisation. Gift of Bread will use its grant to help cover operational costs.

For further information on the Westfield Local Heroes program, click here