Yes you can do it!! Refuse to have hungry children in your neighborhood!!
A great place to start is to have a conversation with your school Principle. Feel free to bring up
our website and take a look at what we put in place and see if it would work for you. Don’t
forget to check out the toolbox, no need to re-invent the wheel on letters to parents, etc. Take
what we have used and make it your own. Your principle will know how many children are on
the free and reduced lunch programs, which is a great place to find out about the number of
children in your school that may have needs. Your Principle may also want to have a
conversation with teachers and counselors that may know of children in need.
Once you have the approval of your Principle, it is on to the next step, finding community
partners. Local churches are a wonderful place to approach for the program, local business
owners, PTA/PTO, Rotary, and Chambers of Commerce are all places to ask to help. You will
need to find partners that are willing to commit to helping you throughout the entire school year.
~We meet once a month (about a week before “packing day”) with folks from the school and
both churches to see what food we have available and what needs to be purchased. We also have
volunteers working on grants and sending letters to local stores asking for donations to our
program that update us on their progress.
Once you have your partners in place, you can determine how many children you can serve. In
our case, we started with 40-each church agreed to fund 20 food bags each week. You will need
to start where you are comfortable and at a level that you can maintain for the school year.
After you set the number of food bags you can deliver to the school per week, your Principle can
determine which children are the neediest. We have a sample letter that the school can send
home inviting the child to participate in the program in the toolbox on the home page.
