Dave Aldrich has transformed a simple baked good into a powerful vehicle for community impact. Through Grab The Bagel, Aldrich has created a nonprofit-driven social enterprise that blends food, generosity, and purpose, extending the mission he began decades earlier with Grab The Torch, his leadership and philanthropy program for young people.
This makes it no surprise that Aldrich has been chosen as Essex Media Group’s Person of the Year for Marblehead.
Before bagels entered his life, Aldrich was best known for founding Grab The Torch, a national nonprofit that taught high school students leadership, ethics, personal purpose, and philanthropy. His programs operated across the country and focused on service-based learning, helping students understand that giving back is not an obligation, but a responsibility.
Then the pandemic brought everything to a halt. In-person programming disappeared overnight, schools were overwhelmed, and students were exhausted by remote learning. Despite redesigning the curriculum for online delivery, Aldrich found there was no space for it.
“We couldn’t keep students safe,” Aldrich said. “Schools weren’t able to take on anything new. They were just trying to survive.”
With Grab The Torch paused and funding evaporating, Aldrich searched for a way to keep his mission alive. He returned to the core principle: give unconditionally. He began quietly delivering homemade cobblers and jars of beach plum sauce to neighbors, anonymous acts meant simply to remind people they were cared for.
That instinct soon found an unexpected form.
When his daughter jokingly emailed him about the closure of a beloved Maine bagel shop, Aldrich decided to try baking his own. Despite never having worked with yeast, he taught himself through trial and error. By New Year’s Day 2022, he was delivering homemade bagels around Marblehead with a handwritten note: “Happy New Year. – Dave.”
The response surprised him. People didn’t just enjoy the bagels; they connected with the spirit behind them.
After refining his recipe through hundreds of tastings, Aldrich retrofitted a former food space at the Marblehead JCC, paying for the renovation himself, and officially launched Grab The Bagel. What followed was rapid, grassroots growth: a custom bagel bus, a hawker’s license in Swampscott, and weekly appearances at local farmers’ markets, where he consistently sells out.
Grab The Bagel is not a traditional business. It operates under Aldrich’s nonprofit umbrella, with proceeds supporting local causes and community needs. Funds and food have gone toward Make-A-Wish projects for local children, the Marblehead Counseling Center, police and fire departments, faith-based community events, and countless unannounced “random acts of bagelness.”
“We just show up with food,” Aldrich said. “No fanfare. No expectations.”
The work reflects Aldrich’s personal history. Growing up with dyslexia, he was often labeled a failure in school, a wound that never fully healed.
He mentioned how “devastating it was for me throughout my life, dealing with the entrenched mental health challenge resulting in being labeled a failure. I suffered with paralyzing and debilitating panic attacks. It has brought me to the bowels of depression, but I’ve always pulled out knowing my purpose and mission to help others.”
He added, “Thankfully, the good people in Marblehead and Swampscott have helped in supporting me. In turn, it’s an honor to serve them.”
Grab The Torch was his response: a promise to help young people find purpose and confidence, especially those who don’t fit traditional definitions of success. That promise continues today as he redevelops the curriculum into Grab The Torch 2.0, with plans to integrate it into Marblehead and Swampscott schools as a service-based elective.
At the center of everything Aldrich does is his 107-year-old godmother, Mrs. Elsie Nickerson, the matriarch of his family and his greatest inspiration. Nearly 50 years ago, she founded what has become one of Rhode Island’s largest food pantries, volunteering weekly until age 100. Her life of quiet service shaped Aldrich’s understanding of what leadership truly looks like.
He honored her legacy through The Elsie Express, a donated minibus restored into Grab The Bagel’s mobile store and community hub. The bus debuted at local holiday parades, serving not just bagels but as a moving tribute to a woman whose values continue to guide his work.
Grab The Bagel has opened a retail presence inside the Warwick Theater, expanding its reach while staying rooted in its nonprofit mission. Aldrich is also launching fundraising and sponsorship opportunities connected to the Bagel Bus, with all donations being tax-deductible.
For Aldrich, Grab The Bagel is not about being the biggest or best bagel operation on the North Shore. It’s about using food to keep a mission alive, teaching, serving, and lifting others up.
The bagel, he said, is simply the delivery vehicle.
