about us

What is BOL Foundation?

Bread of Life (BOL) Foundation is a registered and Indian government-approved interfaith and caste-free trust non-profit organization (NGO). 

We have successfully obtained trust registration under the Bombay Public Trusts Act, 1950 of Govt of India along with 12A and 80G Tax Exemption, as per the provisions of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1961. As our work matures, we will begin registration for foreign contributions aka FCRA. 

Trust Registration No: MH/AHM/E-1360

Trust Registration Date: 05 April 2022

Darpan Registration ID: MH/2022/0315738

12A Registration ID: AAETB7321DE20221 (From AY 2023-24 to AY 2025-2026)

80G Registration ID: AAETB7321DF20221 (From 22-06-2022 to AY 2025-2026 )

CSR1 Registration ID: CSR00044380

What is our mission statement?

We exist, “To offer the bread of life, by providing works of charity to address various forms of poverty within the society". 

The existence of the foundation is aimed to address the harsh reality of our neighbor’s misery anguished with extreme material, cultural, and spiritual poverty.

Under the patronage of the Noble Peace Laureate, St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, the foundation strongly believes that “Service to mankind is service to God”. And thus, the B.O.L. foundation holds firmly, nearly, and dearly to its heart, the principle of common good.  The common good indicates “the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily”. (CCC 1906). The B.O.L. foundation takes pragmatic steps to fulfill the common good of the society by recognizing that the indigent neighbor who is to be loved is everywhere and everyone in the “society” irrespective of caste, creed, color, culture, race, sex, etc. Hence, BOL Foundation is an equal opportunity organisation and will not allow discrimination based upon age, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, national origin, disability, race, size, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, or any other status prohibited by applicable law. We are willing and are able to attest that we do not discriminate on any of the above grounds in order to provide resources from BOL Foundation.

What is our vision statement?  

“To allow people, to reach their ultimate fulfillment more fully and more easily.”

What are the objectives of the foundation?

The core objective of the B.O.L. foundation is to ‘exercise the works of mercy’ (Punyā kārya or Dayā kārya), which are charitable actions by which the foundation comes to the aid of our neighbor in their bodily and spiritual necessities. The core objective is divided into seven corporal, and seven spiritual objectives.

Each of the below seven corporal works of mercy remedies a deficiency in our neighbor’s bodily need: 

1. Feeding the hungry
2. Giving drink to the thirsty
3. Clothing the naked
4. Sheltering the homeless
5. Visiting the sick
6. Visiting the imprisoned
7. Burying the dead

Each of the below seven spiritual works of mercy remedies a deficiency in our neighbour’s spiritual need: 

1. Counseling the doubtful
2. Instructing the uneducated
3. Admonishing the sinners
4. Bearing wrongs patiently
5. Forgiving offenses willingly
6. Comforting the afflicted
7. Praying for the living and the dead

The B.O.L. foundation will come to the aid of our neighbor in their bodily need, where he or she experiences, consistent lack of resources, whether internal (food, thirst), or external (cloth, shelter), or suffering (diseases, imprisonment and burial). Not only bodily, but human persons suffer deficiencies in their spiritual dimension too, to which the spiritual works of mercy respond, either by imploring the help of God (prayer), intervening by instructing or advising others (treats deficiencies through teaching, provide counseling), comforting (in suffering and sadness), or by reacting to the disorders of their action (admonishing, forgiving, bearing with them). The spiritual works of mercy are therefore more valuable than material aid, although there are situations in which the latter is more urgent (Noye, 1980).

All of the above works of mercy would be exercised and provided, without charge, to people regardless of their religion, gender, social caste, creed, color or nationality. These works of mercy will serve as a testimony of the preferential love for the Poor. It is needless to say that these works of mercy for the indigent are not an optional or an “extra”, but rather its very core, since “God shows the poor ‘his first mercy’” (Evangelli Gaudium, 198). 

This option and preferential love for the poor involves a perception and understanding of the different kinds of poverty to which the corporal and spiritual works of mercy refer. It can be observed that the listings of fourteen works of mercy – seven corporal and seven spiritual – corresponds to four kinds of poverty (Kasper, 2013):

1. Physical, or economic poverty: The most basic, poverty of such as having no food, or drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, no roof, no clothes, no shelter, to which could be added unemployment and serious illness or disabilities. This poverty is attested to in the first four corporal works of mercy.
2. Cultural poverty: Physical poverty is followed by cultural poverty, with illiteracy at its root, along with the absence and lack of education opportunities, and, ultimately, the lack of future with the social and cultural exclusions it carries. This poverty is met by the first three spiritual works of mercy,
3. Social and relational poverty: This poverty stems from solitude and withdrawal, the death of a spouse, the death of family members and close friends, external and internal difficulties of social communication of all kinds, discrimination and marginalization, to isolation by imprisonment and exile. This poverty is addressed in the fifth, sixth, and seventh corporal works of mercy and the fifth and sixth spiritual works of mercy.
4. Spiritual poverty: Spiritual poverty means disorientation, inner emptiness, distress, and even despair about the meaning of one’s own existence, moral and spiritual confusion, self-abandonment, the absence or marginalization of the religious dimension, apathy or overwhelming indifference. This poverty is attested in the sixth and seventh (comforting and prayer) spiritual works of mercy.

Obviously, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy need cross-fertilization to ensure that the indigent need not remain in a permanent state of dependency, but to progressively become a “help for self-help” (Kasper). Hence it is important to take comprehensive approach to the works of mercy that is cognizant of the different dimensions of poverty. Finally the B.O.L. foundation embraces the Catholic Church's teaching as her own, about the relationship between charity and justice: "When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice..."[1]

[1] CCC, 24