Chainbreakers' Story
Where Our Work Began — and Where It’s Going
Chainbreakers Inc.'s Founder and CEO
Dr. Rhonda Alexander
ChainBreakers was founded in 2004 by Dr. Rhonda Alexander with a clear purpose: to support families and strengthen communities by bringing people, resources, and opportunity together. That same year, ChainBreakers was awarded 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status, and quickly became known for its Community Days — full-day events that gathered families for school supplies, food, community resources, and moments of joy, all in one place.
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For years, ChainBreakers served as a connector and convener — creating space for families to be supported, informed, and seen.
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Then, in 2017, everything changed.
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A fire destroyed the church where ChainBreakers was housed, bringing programs to an abrupt halt. In the years that followed, the organization went quiet — not because the mission had ended, but because the organization needed space to recover, reflect, and find its footing again.
Our next chapter began quietly — not with a grand reopening, but with a renewed focus on literacy and a single decision to take action.
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After watching the documentary, "The Right to Read", longtime educator and ChainBreakers leader Frances Knight Thompson, realized something that stopped her cold: children she personally knew were making honor roll, yet struggling to read. Yet, she didn’t wait for a plan or a perfect setup. She started tutoring those students, and what she began with just two children, quickly revealed a broader, unmet need: there were many more children in the city of Portsmouth who were facing the same challenge. This discovery sparked the first reading enrichment program program in October 2024 in Cradock Elementary with just 10 students.
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That work reignited our purpose.​
In 2025, we officially relaunched with a renewed, literacy-focused mission that is grounded in the belief that reading is foundational to opportunity.
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Today, ChainBreakers is building on its original spirit with laser-sharp focus and a determination to make a deeper impact in or city by addressing the barriers that make learning harder than it should be.
Through reading enrichment, early access to books, and food programs that help stabilize households, we are once again a trusted community partner that is known for showing up for families in ways that are most meaningful.
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Our goal is to make sure literacy is not a barrier, but a bridge -- one that opens the doors of opportunity for children, families, and our community as a whole.