Signed in as:
filler@godaddy.com
Creating Community Connections
ABOUT OUR WORK
At the heart of our work is a deep commitment to the humanities—fostering understanding, compassion, and dialogue that strengthens communities and amplifies voices. For the past
three years, we’ve followed a recipe for success:
✅ Creating welcoming spaces for open and honest conversations
✅ Honoring differing perspectives
✅ Staying true to our core values and pillars
Serving Hope and Breaking Bread is another way we connect to the community on a smaller scale- but just as impactful- than Live Shows.
We spread cheer, education, conversation, connection, support, and light refreshment.
WHY JOIN?
Join us for evenings of BEing, thought-provoking stories, and deep connection with others.
Let’s break bread, spark meaningful connections, and create lasting impact—together.
A MOMENT OF THANKS
We're extremely grateful to the Midland Area Community Foundation for their gift of a $55,000 ARPA grant to allow us to facilitate Breaking Bread Village Community Connections. The goal of the program was an ambitious effort to connect people from a background of vulnerability and abuse (domestic violence, unhoused, substance abuse survivors, and those who work in the social and human service industry (police, social workers, judicial services, and the medical field). The program had a three-tier effort.
Our Experiences
SHARE A MEAL DAY
SHARE A MEAL DAY
SHARE A MEAL DAY
Share a Meal Day is an annual community invitation- on our birthday May 12th- to slow down, gather, celebrate, and connect over food.
On this day, we encourage people to intentionally share a meal—at a table, in a workplace, at school, or in their own homes—creating space for conversation, curiosity, and genuine connection. Because something powerful happens when we eat together: walls soften, stories surface, and understanding begins.
EMBRACE BEYOND
SHARE A MEAL DAY
SHARE A MEAL DAY
Embrace Beyond is a community initiative designed to honor and guide girls ages 9–12 who have begun their menstrual cycle. Too often, this natural milestone is surrounded by silence, shame, isolation, or confusion.
Our goal is to create a new narrative—one of celebration, knowledge, and pride.
Through gatherings modeled after joyful milestones, like birthday parties, we provide girls with a safe and welcoming space to connect, learn, and grow together.
LOVE SESSIONS
SHARE A MEAL DAY
CELEBRATING YOU AWARDS
In 2021, we launched our Love Session annual Community Connection.
February 7th-13th we openly encourage and participate in intentionally creating connections in the community- through acts of kindness and love. Such as:
- Listen without distractions
- Write a handwritten note
- Virtually support a small business
- Hold the door
- Reach out to a friend
CELEBRATING YOU AWARDS
CELEBRATING YOU AWARDS
CELEBRATING YOU AWARDS
The annual Celebrating YOU Awards honor individuals who lead with heart, show up with intention, and make meaningful impact in their communities—often without recognition.
This experience is about pausing long enough to acknowledge people for who they are, not just what they do, and reminding them that their presence, care, and consistency matter.
SISTER CIRCLE RETREAT
CELEBRATING YOU AWARDS
SISTER CIRCLE RETREAT
The Sister Circle Retreat is an intentional gathering designed to create space for reflection, connection, and restoration among women.
Through conversation, shared experiences, and moments of pause, participants are invited to reconnect with themselves and one another—leaving feeling grounded, supported, and renewed.
HOLDING SPACE
CELEBRATING YOU AWARDS
SISTER CIRCLE RETREAT
No pressure, agenda, or obligation- just community holding space! Together we break bread, share space, and uplift each other.
“When others can’t stand, be their ground. When they can’t speak, be their voice. Holding space isn’t about fixing—it’s about standing in the gap with love, presence, and understanding.”
In February 2025, we created space to exhale, to be in community, and to find some light in the midst of it all.
Embrace Beyond
Embrace Beyond is a community initiative designed to honor and guide girls ages 9–12 who have begun their menstrual cycle. Too often, this natural milestone is surrounded by silence, shame, isolation, or confusion. Our goal is to create a new narrative—one of celebration, knowledge, and pride.
Through gatherings modeled after joyful milestones, like birthday parties, we provide girls with a safe and welcoming space to connect, learn, and grow together. Each event features colorful decorations in red, purple, and pink—symbolizing power, courage, and love. The atmosphere is fun, uplifting, and filled with encouragement, helping girls see this transition not as something to hide, but as something to honor.
Every girl who attends receives a thoughtfully curated bag with a book, resources, and special gifts that serve as both practical tools and uplifting reminders of her worth. In addition to education on hygiene and self-care, the gatherings emphasize friendship, sisterhood, and community—reminding girls that they are not alone on this journey.
Introducing Embrace Beyond
Community Offering
WHY IT MATTERS? Many young girls enter menstruation unprepared, misinformed, or burdened by shame. Some girls have reported that they never shared it with their parents. Embrace Beyond changes that reality by offering a proactive, positive, and culturally relevant approach to this important life stage. By combining education with celebration, we not only build knowledge but also nurture resilience, pride, and confidence.
This program is the beginning of a movement to reframe how society treats girlhood milestones. With every gathering, we sow seeds of empowerment that ripple out into families, schools, and communities, creating lasting impact.
Our WHY
MISSION! To celebrate, educate, and uplift girls ages 9–12 as they begin their menstrual journey—equipping them with knowledge, confidence, and community while honoring this natural stage of life.
VISION! A world where every girl feels proud of her body, supported by her community, and empowered with the tools and understanding to embrace her journey beyond childhood with confidence and joy.
Want to be a Sponsor? Giving Levels
Sponsor One Girl — $25
Sponsor the Whole Experience — $1,500
Sponsor the Circle — $250
Your gift sponsors one girl’s experience at Embrace Beyond.
This includes a Celebration Bag filled with:
- Age-appropriate educational materials
- Feminine hygiene products
- Joyful, confidence-boosting items
- A welcoming, affirming experience centered on growth and self-worth
✨ One gift. One girl. One moment that can shape how she sees herself.
Sponsor the Circle — $250
Sponsor the Whole Experience — $1,500
Sponsor the Circle — $250
Your gift sponsors 10 girls to attend Embrace Beyond.
This level helps create a shared experience—where girls learn, ask questions, and grow together in a safe, supportive space.
You’re not just sponsoring attendance—you’re investing in community, connection, and collective confidence.
This includes a Celebration Bag for each girl filled with:
- Age-appropriate educational materials
- Feminine hygiene products
- Joyful, confidence-boosting items
- A welcoming, affirming experience centered on growth and self-worth
✨Ten girls. One circle. A future shaped by confidence and care.
Sponsor the Whole Experience — $1,500
Sponsor the Whole Experience — $1,500
Sponsor the Whole Experience — $1,500
Your gift makes the entire Embrace Beyond experience possible.
This level covers:
- Program operations & coordination
- Food and nourishment
- Venue and materials
- 20 girls fully sponsored, each receiving a Celebration Bag
By sponsoring this experience, you ensure every detail—from logistics to learning—is thoughtfully prepared so girls can simply show up, be supported, and be celebrated.
✨ When we invest in girls early, we don’t just prepare them for change—we remind them they are beautifully made, they are worth the celebration and time, and that they have community.
A Celebration of Natural Moments and Fierce Beginnings!
Support the Movement
It’s time to change the conversation around periods—from shame to strength, from silence to celebration. Embrace Beyond is a bold new movement honoring the moment a girl starts her period as a rite of passage, not something to hide. We’re here to say: this is powerful. This is beautiful. This is worth celebrating.
Through meaningful ceremonies, empowering messages, and supportive resources, Embrace Beyond helps girls feel proud of their bodies and confident in who they’re becoming. This is about self-worth. About community. About rewriting the story for the next generation.
Let’s show up for our girls. Let’s normalize, honor, and celebrate this transition with the love, care, and pride they deserve.
Join us. Support the movement. Help us make Embrace Beyond the celebration every girl deserves- where each girl walks away with a bag filled with care, resources, and love.
Share Our Stories, Part 1
Whispers to Wisdom: Menopause Unmuted
On November 18, 2025, women gathered at the Pere Marquette Depot in Bay City for an evening that was honest, joyful, and deeply needed.
We refused to stay silent — for the sake of the women coming behind us. Because women deserve more than whispers and mystery. They deserve real talk, real stories, and real preparation. They deserve more than confusion, isolation, or surprise. They deserve honesty, education, and support.
And they deserve it now.
This was never a niche topic. It’s life. And that night, we rallied together — not just to talk about menopause, but to share our stories, compare notes, laugh loudly, and create a community of wisdom.
As the conversation unfolded, we were reminded of something powerful: women are out here every day, sipping lattes, managing full lives, holding families and careers together — all while their bodies are literally reforming. Casual superheroes in cardigans, navigating hot flashes and hormonal plot twists with grace and grit.
Whispers to Wisdom: Menopause Unmuted peeled back the hush, broke down stigma, and invited women to lean into this transition with laughter, compassion, and courage. It was a night rooted in sisterhood, growth, and love — a reminder that no woman has to walk this season alone.
Want to learn more about what the evening held?
Share Our Stories, Part 2
Balance Docuseries: Menopause Unmuted
Something is happening in women’s bodies long before we had language for it.
And for many, it arrives quietly—confusing, isolating, and unnamed.
On January 31, we’re inviting you into a shared learning experience with a community screening of the docuseries Balance at NCG Cinemas- Midland. Doors open at 8:30 AM, with the screening beginning at 9:00 AM.
Balance explores perimenopause—the often-overlooked season that impacts physical health, mental clarity, emotions, relationships, and identity. It’s a phase so many people experience, yet few are taught to recognize or talk about until they’re already in it.
This screening is Part 2 of our Menopause Unmuted community offering, under our Serving Hope & Breaking Bread initiative. It’s for those currently experiencing perimenopause, menopause, or post-menopause, those who will one day, and those who love someone in this season and want to understand how to support them better.
Why gather together?
Because silence creates confusion—and confusion creates shame. Learning in community reminds us we’re not alone, that our experiences are valid, and that understanding begins when we’re willing to sit together, watch, listen, and ask better questions.
🎟 Free tickets
🍿 Free concessions
🎥 Watch-party style—no pressure, just presence
Some conversations don’t start with answers—they start with awareness.
Come be part of the moment where curiosity replaces confusion and connection replaces isolation. 💜❤️
Share A Meal Day- Happy Birthday to Us
Thanks for Celebrating With Us!
Since May of 2020, The Breaking Bread Village has been bringing people together through meaningful conversations. To celebrate this milestone, we invited YOU to spend May 12th sharing a meal with someone, sparking meaningful conversation, and strengthening our community - on your own time, in your own way!
We're so grateful for all the people and groups who celebrated with us! You gave us a beautiful gift!
Sharing a meal isn't just about food—it's about presence, intention, and seeing one another. In a world that seems to encourage division and distraction, taking the time to connect face-to-face can be a radical act of love and unity. It reminds us that behind every story is a person worth listening to. For individuals, it can mean feeling seen, heard, and valued. For communities, it strengthens bonds, builds trust, and nurtures a culture where empathy and compassion lead the way.