Sunday, March 27, 2011


Helping a friend in need is a friend indeed!  Again the Ramada Plaza and Conference Centre in Abbotsford pulled out all the stops!  In just 2 bakings, Christine Lane, General Manager and Chef Jonathon of the Ramada provides Barb Giraud in her fundraising for Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels with  nearly $1000 worth of Banana Bread ( nearly 100 loaves!!). Selling these loaves to build a shelter for 32 homeless children in Jinja,Uganda.  We are so grateful for the generosity of the Ramada, Save On Foods, Sumas Way and  Kim Ross for making this possible.





A big thanks to Sue Weibe for letting us use her catering kitchen in her home to bake. Everyone gave up there Sunday and a Canucks game for helping and together with Sue, Gerri, Cindy and myself, we baked a total of 43 loaves. 




Meet the crew at Trinity Memorial United Church who opened their kitchen to us more than once. We baked approximately 80 loaves together and had so much fun with it..
More flour on us than in the bread I think. Thank you all  for participating and also for Gerri running out to the store every time we ran out of an ingredient.





Go Go Beans Restaurant






Who started the ball rolling?  Go Go Beans Restaurant.  If it wasn't for Martha and Pauline promoting our banana bread for well over one year and always helping us raise the money,  the first building would never have been completed.  You two really went the extra mile for us... We love you.


Let me introduce two girls who took the bull by the horns to promote  "Banana Bread" .
Kaitlin and Katie from "A Little More Good" wrote the following story explaining their plan.

A Little More Good Goes Bananas

Somewhere in this world, a house is being built - brick by brick, banana by banana.You might think there’s no way that bananas have anything to do with bricks, and even less to do with building a house. Let me correct you by introducing Barbara Giraud and her incredible project.

The team at A Little More Good decided that helping Barbara was the perfect project to donate time towards. A few emails and phone calls later, and we were well on our way to planning a bake sale. After Barbara told us that demand for her banana bread has been unimaginably high, we decided to make our bake sale into a month long fundraising event: A Little More Good Goes Bananas! For one week starting on Sunday, March 13th, anyone interested in purchasing a loaf of Barbara’s banana bread can sign up by email (see our contact information at the end of this article). Over the following three weeks, from March 20th to April 10th, our volunteers will bake the loaves (with Barbara’s input and recipe, of course!) and coordinate with our customers for delivery to various locations. Because we’ll be relying on our volunteers to bake and deliver this banana bread, we’ll only be selling an initial 125 loaves at $8.00 each, for a goal of $1000 raised for Barbara’s cause. If more than 125 loaves are requested, our team will fill the first 125 orders, and then hold a bake sale on April 10th where loaves of Barbara’s banana bread will be available to everyone who missed out on the initial order.

Our hope is that A Little More Good will be able to help Barbara return to Jinja at the end of April with enough money to make a good start on the second building at Jaaja Barb’s Home of Angels. It may be just a small step in the direction of seeing Edwin’sdream completed, but he is overjoyed simply at the idea that people across an entire ocean are helping him to reach his goal. And being a part of that joy? That’s worth its weight in, well, banana bread.......


written by Kaitlin and Katie

Update:   These two girls have secured Price Mart Foods in Abbotsford for a banana bread sale on April 9th from 10:00am until 2:00pm.  Be sure to stop by and say hi if you are in the neighborhood.  Let them know you are apart of this team also.


Our Wife and Mother Bakers....you guys are so awesome....

I cannot forget to thank the many bakers from around the Vancouver and Fraser Valley area.  So many of you ignoring your husbands as you spend your evenings baking, driving so far to deliver them and never giving up.  You are our inspiration and without you, this would never be possible.  And a huge thanks to Sheila and Debbie at Heaven Only Knows for being our middle man.  For opening your store to pass the orders along and raising money on your own.  This is what I call "good friends" and Edwin and I thank you both so very much.  Palm trees will be lining "Barb's Alley" for every one of you....



10 comments:

  1. Absolutely fantastic Barb....I am so happy that your community are giving you so much support, they are AMAZING!!!

    So exciting!!

    Simone xx

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  2. Great job mom - you did it! I can't believe how well you are managing all of the support you have received~
    xx

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  3. Thanks hon and thanks for always being there for us. Aren't we blessed with all of this support Kim? I am so excited that there are so many people in this world that really want to do something...they just don't know who to trust.

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  4. When I picked up 3 of these wonderful loaves of bread, my first thoughts were that I was contributing to a wonderful cause. When I got home and sat down with my husband to have a slice, both our eyes lit up and at that moment in time we were thinking about our taste buds. This is just a win win situation no matter how you look at it. Thank you Barb and helpers for putting so much of yourselves into this wonderful cause.

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  5. Wow, thanks so much for the compliment. I will be sure to pass this along to our bakers who support Jaaja Barb's Home of Angels" I hope one day we can make this over there for the little "angels" too.

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  6. Barb, thanks for the continued updates. And while you are in Uganda in a few weeks, please, don't forget us - would love to get some more updates while you're there. You know, in between you laying some bricks and all. ;)

    Also, please, please, please give Edwin a HUGE (I mean HUGE) hug. We need more people like him (and yourself) in this world. You two are AWESOME!

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  7. I promise to do that for you and it will be HUGE and from you. Thanks for being apart of all of this, you are our "angel" and we hope to see you there one day... thanks so much and I will get the brick laying picture on here for sure....lol

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  8. I am so grateful for the great love that you are showing for our cause that needs so many people like you to make a difference on problems that we did not create but because of love for the angels .
    Great thanks to my jaaja who is working long hours to see this grow fast to save the lives of the children . thanks to all those that have come up with any support, baking and transporting of the banana breads, words of encouragement. provision of materials for baking and showing of love for the less fortunate.
    Ish, I just received your hug from Canada

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  9. I shared with my youth last night about how prayers are being answered *thank you God!* for
    these little kids. It is awesome to see our awesome God use willing people like Edwin and Barb!!!
    Is there a way we can mail packages for the kids?

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  10. We really grateful with those that have given most of their times towards the growth of jaaja barb's home of angels to bring happiness and joy those angels in uganda . at this home . and please allow me to express my happiness to you that my jaaja Barb is coming reaching me uganda in two day from now wow wow wow please pray for my jaaja .

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