The Superbowl coming to Tampa Bay brought lots of fun, excitement, crowds, and was great for Tampa Bay businesses. Not to mention, we gained some loveable new nicknames, like “Tompa” and “Champa Bay.”

But a high profile event such as this brings along with it a lesser known dark side as well.

Realities of Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a form of modern-day slavery in which traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to control victims for the purpose of engaging in commercial sex acts or labor services against his/her will.

And sadly, victims of human trafficking are often overlooked, as they may look like many of the people you see everyday.

The good news is, there is growing worldwide support to help fight this horrible industry and provide relief and support to the victims and their families.

Local Support in Our Community

Two Tampa Bay organizations who have poured their heart and soul into this cause are VuViVo and HeartDance, and we here at Brudders’ Books are honored to be able to work with both of them.

In 2020 VUVIVO Ministries’ LAB Initiative raised and contributed over $50k to support efforts to fight human trafficking and care for survivors. $20k was provided to the International Association of Human Trafficking Investigators in order to sponsor specialized training for Tampa Bay law enforcement agencies ahead of the 2021 Super Bowl.

In October of 2020, funds from the LAB Initiative were used to help a non-profit organization in Brazil facilitate the rescue and care for a precious teenage girl out of a horribly traumatic situation.

The remaining funds were distributed locally to organizations whose work directly supports human trafficking survivors.

Supporting Survivors and Children in At-Risk Families

Enter HeartDance. HeartDance’s mission is to provide hope and restoration to exploited men, women, and children in Tampa Bay. One notable initiative of theirs is teaming up with other local organizations to reach out to women and their children who work in the strip club industry. With gifts, non-judgment, and lots of love and prayer, they seek to bring Christ's light and hope into the darkest places in Tampa Bay.

Brudders® Continues His Mission to be a Child’s Forever Friend

As HeartDance was ministering to at-risk moms working in Tampa’s strip club industry, they learned that one of the things the moms wanted most were children’s books that were grounded in faith and could provide their kids comfort and hope.

When HeartDance reached out to VuViVo asking if they knew anyone, Brudders’ Books instantly popped into VuViVo’s mind. And when VuViVo reached out to us, we didn’t hesitate one second to help out.

So on Superbowl Sunday, while many were in front of their TVs or at the game, Team Brudders and VuViVo Ministries got together and put God’s work into motion.

We wrote out cards to these at-risk moms with words of encouragement and included them in gift bags, complete with signed Brudders® books for their young children.

“I constantly go back to the WHY behind us creating Brudders’ Books in the first place, and the WHO that we really wanted to be there for,” says author K.A. Leigh. “Everyone always asks us how we came up with Brudders, and our motivation then was as clear as it is now. Brudders’ character and story was developed with a young child in mind, who might not always have their parents around, who might have a less than ideal family situation, or who might live in a wonderful family but secretly want a special friend they can relate to and bond with. So when Zach from VuViVo came to us with this situation and urgent need, it was a no-brainer. This is exactly why we created Brudders®, and he and HeartDance’s missions couldn’t be more relevant to ours.”

Brudders® Books Creators, K.A. Leigh & Derek Roberts

It was a really special evening working together with VuViVo, and we feel so blessed knowing that these young kids might take comfort in having Brudders as their special forever friend, and knowing that for us, this is another step forward in living out God’s purpose for our lives.

If you know of kids or families at risk or in similar situations, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, VuViVo, or HeartDance for support. We’re here to help in any way we can.

Thank you for sharing in our mission, and back into the woods we go!

-K.A. & Derek

This might just go down as one of our favorite events to date. What an amazing team effort amongst three organizations who care about nothing more than bringing kids friendship and putting smiles on their faces!

It started with a simple “hey, we should partner” idea just a month prior between three acquaintances, arguably now good friends, in the Tampa Bay area. The talented Carol, owner of Blooming Flower Art in the beautiful Winthrop shopping center, Sarah Weaver with A Door of Hope Christian Foster Agency, and our very own K.A. Leigh, Brudders’ Books author and creator, met for coffee one day, all sharing the same goal - to help kids feel loved and give them a forever friend.

Caffeine was consumed and ideas started rolling, and before you know it, the February 11th event was formed. And not just one event that day, but four! We wanted to make sure all families had a time available to them that best fit their busy schedules.

The event took place on the beautiful brick-paved patio of the Blooming Flower Art flower shop in Winthrop. Brudders Valentine’s Day card crafts and coloring activities were all lined up on the tables for the kids to make their very own Valentines cards.

Next, storytime followed with a special, interactive book reading of Brudders Learns How to Make Friends by the author K.A. Leigh herself!

“I LOVED the engagement and how into the story the kids were. They were a great age group for the book in that I got to ask interactive questions to them about the underlying lessons learned from the story,” says Leigh. And boy did they all get it and LOVE it. “As an author, nothing beats that moment when you finish the story, then look up at the kids and ask them if they like it, and they all shout back with the most enthusiastic ‘YEAH!!’ That just completely fills my heart and makes it all worth it.”

To put the icing on the cake, Nothing Bundt Cakes donated a large assortment of their signature Bundtinis for the event, and we concluded with lots of book signings for the kids AND gift bags for the parents to take home as well.

We care about good hospitality, if you haven’t noticed. ;)

Nothing Bundt Cake Bundtinis Donation for Brudders’ Books Valentine’s event.

“Everyone kept asking us when the next event will be,” says K.A. Leigh laughing, “I guess that means it was a success, and we better start planning again real soon!”

If you were in the Tampa Bay area and able to make the event, we LOVED meeting you and your kiddos! Thanks so much for letting us be part of your day and making memories with your family.

Enjoy some pictures from the special day below!

Interested in having Brudders® at your next event or have ideas for your community? Send us an email at hellobrudders@bruddersbooks.com and let us know!

Until then…..Back into the woods we go!

When we first conceptualized Brudders, and our mission and purpose behind creating this series, our goal was clear. We wanted to give kids a forever friend they could relate to and lean on, especially at a time when they needed one the most.

So we set out to do just that. We called up St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and asked them how many little ones were currently in-patients at the hospital. Anywhere from 40 - 50, we learned.

These ranged from kids recovering from an acute trauma to those who have spent a painfully long time living in the hospital while being treated for a more chronic illness.

We wanted to give these kids a new, special friend with Brudders, and the loving guardianship of Zeke.

And so 50 books it was! We packaged them all up with a bow and hand-delivered them to the Children’s Hospital’s foundation office. While we would’ve LOVED to see the smiles on the kids faces as they met their new special friends, COVID unfortunately limited us from going into the hospital.

But that’s ok. We’ve checked in and are so happy to hear many of the books have already been delivered to the kids.

You know, it’s interesting. Someone asked us once why Brudders woke up in a treehouse all alone, and if we were ever going to expand on that. And we politely smiled back to the gentleman and said that it was a great question, but we’ve intentionally chosen not to.

Many kids find themselves in situations where they don’t have parents, or they’re stuck in a situation they just couldn’t control, like a hospital. The beautiful thing about kids is, that they just want to live! And they want to live in the moment. That is the bravest thing a human being could ever do, and we don’t ever want to draw their attention away from that. And we certainly don’t want a child to feel any less than what God made them to be, just because of factors they can’t control.

So to these kids, whatever their situation is, it is. Just like the opening scene of our Brudders series. We don’t make them feel any differently, we don’t focus on peculiarities. We just simply pick up where we are, and we live, learn, and have fun in the best way that we possibly can.

More information can be found about St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital here or at their Foundation page.

Have a blessed New Year everyone, and if you’d like to reach out to us about any kids in need who could really use Brudders as their special new friend, send us an email, we’d love to hear from you.

Thanks so much,

K.A. & Derek, Author & Illustrator of Brudders’ Books

Bay News 9 Story on Brudders’ Books Partnership with Fostering Change Foster Closet

We just want to take a moment to call out one of the most amazing people we’ve ever met. George Agovino, a retired police officer who has dedicated his life to providing emergency support to children being pulled out of homes and into foster care.

George started the organization, Fostering Change Foster Closet, after spending a lifelong career in the police force. He was an officer that had to pull children out of traumatic home situations, and way too many times than he’d like to count.

His foster closet is open 24/7, with many calls flowing in to him in the middle of the night. Much like he had remembered from his earlier days as a police officer.

We were over the moon excited and happy to meet George and his family at his Fostering Change Foster Closet. He is so happy to talk about his mission, and completely lights up with his visions for the future.

Upon talking to George, we knew instantly that we wanted to contribute to Fostering Change’s mission, so we arrived to their site with a special delivery of our Brudders® books so he could distribute them out to the families that called on him for help this holiday season.

Watch the full Bay News 9 story here!

With love and gratitude,

-K.A. & Derek

What an exciting first holiday season it was for our little book business! Over the last two months, we were SO fortunate to connect with so many kind-hearted people and organizations here in the Tampa Bay area.

One of those being A Door of Hope. A Door of Hope’s mission is to provide hope for kids in crisis by providing loving, Christian foster homes, while exemplifying the core values of Sacrifice, Perseverance, Integrity, Compassion, and Excellence.

An amazing event we got to be a part of was their Christmas For Fosters Event! This is an annual event held to collect and deliver presents to the children of our community’s foster homes.

And hundreds of them, for that matter.

We wanted to donate our new book, Brudders Learns How to Make Friends, to each of the families with young children, so we were blessed to be able to set up a table at the event to meet them AND sign their books right there as well!

Here are some pictures from the day.

We absolutely love this organization and look forward to lots more memories to come!

-K.A. & Derek

Well this was a super exciting phone call to get! Sean Daly of ABC Action News wanted to do a story on us to talk about our adorable new Brudders® book series and how, in just two months of doing business, we’re giving back to our local Tampa Bay community by donating 100 books to kids in need this holiday season!

The clip and news story feature many of the beautiful watercolor illustrations from our new book, Brudders Learns How to Make Friends, and also talks about what our goals were as we developed and brought this new character, Brudders® the bear, into the world.

You can read the story and watch the clip here!

Sean from ABC pretty much nailed it when he quoted the book as being, “an old-school hardcover beauty, with page after page of pure charm.”

So many children’s books these days are done digitally on the computer, but we as Brudders’ creators wanted to bring something into the world that would last for generations. And there is no better person to create 44 pages of pure enchantment than illustrator, Derek Roberts.

Check out the story and let us know what you think! And friends, we have got SO much more to come!

Until then….Back into the woods we go!

-K.A. & Derek, Brudders’ Keepers

If there’s anything we can say about Tampa Bay’s Small Business Community, it’s that the love and support of the business owners we’ve met so far has been endless. Between child sitting and daycare sitting services, workout groups for stay-at-home parents, or organizations started purely in response to a child that was in desperate need, there is one thing we find that is always common amongst all of us:

We just want to make sure kids feel cared for and families can lean on us for support.

Doublemint Sitting

We were fortunate enough to cross paths with the two amazing women who started the now widely-known childcare sitting services, Doublemint Sitting. Synthia and Gabi, cofounders of Doublemint, became a team after working together in a group foster home.

Synthia and Gabi of Doublemint Sitting

Video from ABC Action News

They started providing babysitting services together, which then branched out through all of South Tampa. After quickly realizing their love for working with children and families, and a LOT of networking and hard work, they established their own company, Doublemint Sitting, in 2013.

But it doesn’t stop with childcare sitting services. Synthia and Gabi continue to give their services to children in foster care. They established an annual foster care drive to collect new toys and necessities for foster families in critical need during the holidays.

And that is how we here at Brudders’ Books came across them! Children in foster care are near and dear to our hearts because, just like Brudders the bear, they are often learning how to grow up and do new things on their own. So we wanted to make sure that we could give those kids the special friendship and relationship of Brudders as well!

Brudders’ Books author, K.A. Leigh, with Doublemint Sitting owners, Synthia and Gabi.

We were so excited and honored to give our new Brudders Books to 10 of their foster families in need this holiday season! Every smile we get to see on a child’s face when they see Brudders (and Zeke!) fills our hearts with love and reminds us of why we took this leap of faith.

Thank you ladies of Doublemint Sitting and Camp Doublemint for caring so much about the children and families of our Tampa Bay community! We look forward to a special partnership with you for a long time.

-K.A. & Derek, Brudders’ Books

Brudders wasted no time since his first book, Brudders Learns How to Make Friends, made its debut to the world on October 1st 2020! And what better place for Brudders to make new friends than at the local pumpkin patch!

The Gallagher Family, who created and has been running the famous Gallagher’s Family Pumpkin & Christmas Trees Patch for generations, was so kind to let us set up a Brudders table display at their BEAUTIFUL and amazingly FUN pumpkin patch! There were the most adorable goats, more pumpkin colors and varieties than you could ever imagine, and fall photo opp setups straight out of Pinterest or Instagram.

But the best part for us at Brudders’ Books was all the amazing families and kids we got to meet! We had our books out on display for families to read through and purchase to take home if they’d like (and so many did!). We had free Brudders coloring activities for kids to take with them, and we just loved signing books and taking pictures with the families!

If you’re reading this and we were blessed to meet you at the pumpkin patch, THANK YOU! We loved getting to know all of you and all of the follow-up messages and pictures you sent to us afterwards. It’s been such a blessing to hear how much Brudders means to your child as their new special friend. We are honored to build this relationship with you and are excited for what’s to come!

-K.A. & Derek, Brudders’ Books

Zach Elliott, creator of VUVIVO, Lab: The Podcast, & author of the book, Now I See

If you haven’t met Zach Elliott (pictured here), the creator of VUVIVO and host of Lab: The Podcast, you need to. Like, now. In fact, just go meet his entire family while you’re at it. Because they are those special kinds of people you don’t meet too often. The ones that, no matter who you are or what you may be going through, just being in their presence and talking to them will instantly put you at ease and make for a better day.

Not to mention, Zach hosts the most interesting variety of guests on his podcast as well. From filmmakers, to authors, to US Senators, Lab: The Podcast covers it all. It’s probably one of the most eloquently done and informative podcasts we’ve ever listened to.

And we, the creators of Brudders’ Books, got to be guests of Zach! We covered some really interesting topics during our time, so if you’re curious how the character and story of Brudders was formed, life before and after Brudders, the technicalities behind our book’s fascinating watercolor art, and loads more, then go take a listen now!

Brudders’ Books Author & Illustrator, K.A. Leigh & Derek Roberts Featured On Lab: The Podcast

You can access the podcast through Apple Podcasts , directly from the VUVIVO website, or download their totally awesome new VUVIVO App below!

We hope you enjoy and let us know what you think!

-K.A. & Derek

We’ve partnered up with some A-MOM-MAZING business owners here in the Tampa Bay Area! iStroll is dedicated to transforming families’ lives through dynamic, fun and challenging workouts and gives both moms and dads a full body workout while keeping babies moving and happy!

And we here at Brudders’ Books got to bring storytime to their cute kiddo clientele at the end of their workouts! Author K.A. Leigh read her new book, Brudders Learns How to Make Friends, and illustrator Derek Roberts made an appearance too to talk about his beautiful hand-painted watercolor illustrations.

Brudders’ Books author, K.A. Leigh reads Brudders Learns How to Make Friends for a Storytime in the Park with iStroll Tampa.

We had books available for purchase and raffled off a book at each location for a lucky winner! We loved watching the kids’ engagement in the story and the beautiful pictures, and like we’re noticing so often, so many of them are hooked on Brudders’ new friend, Zeke!

It was a beautiful week of storytimes, and we are so grateful to iStroll for this wonderful opportunity! It just warms our heart that Brudders got to go home to so many new families and become lots of children’s new forever friend.

-K.A. & Derek

Brudders’ Books Storytime in the Park