DINNER CLUB: Program meets Sundays to offer love and guidance
PERRY — Providing support, love and care for single moms has been a joint effort through community outreach in Perry.
Breaking Bread Dinner Club, a local, independent initiative extending outreach within Wyoming County, which meets at Breezeway Barns and Gardens on 151 North Center St. The group was formed to meet the needs of single mothers in the area.
“Having been a single mom, I personally realize the challenges associated with raising children in a single parent household,” said Jen Hall of Breaking Bread Dinner Club. “Also, after remarrying our family became involved in foster care and saw that many of the moms had basic needs that, had they been met early on, might have potentially kept their children out of the system.”
According to nationwide statistics, of the 24 million children living with a single parent, 80 percent of those parents are single moms. Of the more than 40,000 residents of Wyoming County, approximately 9,700 are single moms or grandmothers raising school-age children.
The Breaking Bread Dinner Club believes by creating and building relationships with single moms in a safe, secure, fun environment they can have an impact on the lives within our communities.
Statistics show sustaining and supporting the family unit in crisis can prevent children from being thrown into an overburdened welfare system. Besides serving single moms starting with covering the basic needs — food, shelter, clothing — it moves progressively into higher level needs such as education, health, nutrition, and financing by involving community members to use the social resources found in the volunteers who serve.
Though the initiative is facilitated through Breezeway Barns and Gardens, Hall is thankful many churches in the area have come together to support the effort as a community program. As the outreach continues, she hopes other community organizations will as well.
Meeting survival, practical, spiritual and emotional needs of single mothers is a mission the community hopes to continue to help with.
The meetings are held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Sunday evenings the second and fourth Sundays of each month. Meetings are open to all women who are parenting their children alone without regard to how they became a single parent, their age or religious beliefs.
The meetings typically begin with a group of ladies preparing a meal and single moms bringing their children to eat and play. Group leaders are currently working toward creating a schedule featuring community experts to come and share their knowledge on topics including higher education, budgeting, healthy eating, gardening, cooking, baking with kids, canning and more.
Dinner and childcare are provided during the meetings.
“It’s exciting to see the community come together and the response we have seen at numerous levels has been encouraging,” Hall said. “One does not need to be in desperate need of services to join in this group. It provides a moment to relax with children and enjoy a good meal together. Not only is it good for moms to support one another, it is good for kids to get together with their moms and have fun. It’s good to take a break from the heaviness of single parenthood and create community connections. A mom might think she’s coming to the group to get a rest and in turn be able to help support other moms by just being there.”
For more information, call Breezeway Barns at (585) 447-3607.