Founder and CEO, Zarata H. Scott founded Your Bread & Water Magazine in 1984 out of the need to help educate people in a broad, concrete and comfortable manner about the principles of God, and their inherent connection to everything in life. The title, Your Bread & Water is one of great reaching implications and has had a positive impact on the secular world because of its personal, yet multifacet connotations to health, finances, foods, education, entertainment, physical and spiritual well being. Everyone in the world now and then needs a little dose of bread and water in order to survive. It is the universal plate of substinence. Early in life Zarata had always been deeply moved by the need to display, educate, illustrate and illuminate God's Word and His presence everywhere and in everything. Not just simply on Sunday mornings at 11am but on worldly turfs and places the average person would not expect to see it.
The first little yellow edition was published in 1984 with a New Year's Baby on the front cover. It was a preview of the first upcoming magazine to alert the community that something interesting was on its way. She used money she had saved up to print 300 copies. This little yellow copy peeked the interest of many and the press run continued to become greater and greater. The front cover of the next edition was a pink rose. Zarata talked to the owner of a Dry Cleaning company and convinced him to take out a full page ad which took care of most of the cost to print about 2,000 copies. She was also able to sell more ads to a couple of other business owners. Your Bread & Water began to be distributed in grocery stores, restaurants, schools, churches, universities, prisons and on the streets. Your Bread & Water papers grew into talk sessions , and more and more magazines were published. Some editions were translated into the Spanish language and more and more people became interested in its content. Years later Your Bread & Water received the Delaware Entrepreneurial Award, and the Creative Expressive Award. It began to gain the support of many businesses around the community and in 1985 Your Bread & Water received national attention with the Essence Award and the founder was recognized as The Essence woman of the year. The circulation grew to 10,000 quarterly then to 20,000 quarterly.
In 1992, Your Bread and Water formed an inter-agency entitled, 'MATH', Mothers And Teachers Hands. A small handful of mothers and teachers who work with youths in developing whole life management skills and balanced lifestyles. 'MATH' gives youths a voice, and a creative channel which assists them in self expression, spiritual development, career paths, and educational direction. From this core group was birthed a video ministry, where individuals, especially children and well informed adults observed current movies, popular fads, sensationalism, and other video presentations with sound explanations and interactive dialog with youths instead of children simply being passive indulgers of indecent media. The motto for this group is, 'Guard your hearts, for out of it flows the issues of life'. In 1995, Your Bread & Water created ZOH INC. Publishing Company. A publishing company that produces and publishes self help books, educational books, spiritual based books and where for first time authors could get their materials published.
Today, Your Bread & Water is a thriving Newspaper, an online Magazine and a resource center that serves as a voice of clarity, power, love and a voice to anchor and encourage sound minds. In the last ten years Your Bread & Water has spoken to well over a million readers. Your Bread & Water looks forward to doing even more effective work all over the world with their website: yourbreadandwater.com and yourbreadandwater.org.
Author, Publisher, Screen Writer, University Professor, and Minister, Zarata H. Scott received national attention as the Essence woman of the National Essence Publication for her work in creating a spiritual based magazine, Your Bread & Water. She has interviewed celebrities such as Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Martin Luther King III, Susan Taylor, Shirley Caesar, Sammy Sosa, Myles Munroe, Vice President Joe Biden, Al Sharpton and others.
Zarata has authored, co-authored and published several books, Ruff Bus #25, Spanish thru Symbols, Preach Reverend Hickman and is currently working on a new book. As a screen writer and author of children literature, Zarata has seen her work on the Silver Screen and her written works on the desks of major publishing companies. Zarata teaches on the university and corporate level and has over 30 years experience in community and cultural projects. Another one of her passions is film. Film and writing are the tools she uses to implement social change. She is a graduate of the Hollywood Film Institute and a certified Film producer and Director. Zarata has participated in a few Film festivals as a film critic and feels as though film is a powerful media to change the mindset of the world. A world that needs to be elevated to the high plane of 'wisdom from above'.