Bread Tags Helping Kids!

Clean Up Give Back (CUGB) is an organization trying to build community through sustainability, but what makes our work more meaningful is when we are able to pull another topic or goal into a project. For this project, we combined our usual sustainability mission with one of social justice, which was so rewarding to be a part of. Our chapter of CUGB partnered with Danielle Cares for Chairs to hold a large community bread tag collection. Danielle Cares for Chairs is an organization that takes the tags (a clean plastic) and sells them in order to buy prosthetics and wheelchairs for children in need.

(Watch this video to see all of the businesses that hosted a collection jar!)

Our teen board personalized approximately 30 glass jars with information for the bread tag collection. We had a lot of fun slapping on stickers and tying ribbon in order to fit the “vibe” of each of our community collection sites. Then, we delivered the jars to all of the local sites who had agreed to participate in the bread tag collection! This included restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, pre-schools, churches, temples, grocery stores, zero waste businesses... you name it!

Most sites served as a community drop off center and some even collected tags from their kitchens. All in all, we collected over 11,400 bread tags! What’s even crazier is that our community donated tags from approximately 228,000 slices of bread in 3 months!

Our major contributors turned out to be the diners (MP Kitchen, Cozy Corner, George's, Louie's) who use multiple bags of bread to make toast every single day. Trader Joe's (Oak Park location) was another large contributor. The employees at this local grocery store pulled duplicate tags off of bags and found an alternate closure method for donated bread in order to help our cause - we cannot thank them enough!

Whether you were an individual contributor or large donor, your tags made a difference!

It was such a rewarding experience to be able to contribute to the wellbeing and accommodations for children in need. We learned that whether it’s collecting 10 bread tags or 200,000 bread tags, we can have an impact when we work together as a community. A project like this not only helps kids in need but also diverts so many single use plastics from landfills.

If you want to keep helping kids and diverting plastics, feel free to contact us and we’ll help you help the kids and the environment.

Again, a very special thanks to our community drop-off sites, bread-using kitchens, local businesses, and individual donors!