We started here...

The school district supported the project through outreach to families via email and building communication. District staff honored student privacy by receiving community and caregiver inquiries and creating an order database with family size, dietary needs, and contact information. The district maintained consistent contact with participating families to answer questions and respond to individual needs to remove food pick-up or distribution barriers. A culture of care is essential to help ensure that no child goes hungry when not in school. 

Using information provided by our school contacts about the age of the children and any special dietary needs, we spent hours researching appropriate food and gathering orders from a variety of sources.  More than 40 different food items were included in our carefully constructed "menus."  Each of those items were researched to determine if they met the various dietary requirements: Halal, gluten free, lactose free, nut free, and so on.

By the Numbers

Between November 18th and November 26:

120+ community volunteers gave more than 250 service hours. Moved, unboxed, sorted 1200+ lbs of food Packed more than 4500 food items in 103 bags.  30 children had special dietary needs/restrictions that required individual packing. $1875 in grocery cards distributed to 48 families to buy fresh produce and dairy

Timeline

(Note that this timeline covers only the activities during the active 8-day period when community volunteers came together to support hungry children. It does not reflect the countless hours that went into the planning and preparation that preceded that 8-day active period, from communication and outreach to families in need, to ordering the food, to carefully planning special menus, to arranging necessary space and resources, to recruiting and tracking volunteers, and more.)

November 18th – Volunteers from the Tri-Village Lions took on individual “prep” assignments, creating “cookies-and-cocoa” snack kits, carefully creating the bag tags that carried critical information for packing, and sorting assembled boxes of food items. Our storage UNIT was delivered to the UA Senior Center to be used for sorting/storage throughout the week.

November 20th – 12 community volunteers met at the MCL Cafeteria to compile 100+ four-compartment snack boxes with babybel cheese, pepperoni slices, yogurt-covered raisins, pretzels.

November 21st – The Tri-Village Lions were joined at their meeting by 15 community volunteers. Together, they assembled 100 “do-it-yourself PBJ sandwich” kits (including a dozen kits with special substitutions), 100 snack bags of goldfish crackers, 100 Tostido snacks (chips, salsa, nacho cheese, and 100 bags of ice pops. 

November 22nd – an estimated 1200 lbs of food was moved from the collection location to the UA Senior Center, where the boxes were opened, food was inventoried, and pre-bagged as appropriate (pretzels and caramel dip, fresh carrots and tomatoes). AKtion club members divided 1000 drinks (juice/Capri Sun) into bags of 5 for distribution in the larger bags. In the late afternoon, all foods were shifted to secondary space in the UA Senior Center, arranged in pre-set “pick up” stations, and readied for packing on Sunday.

November 24th – Dozens of volunteers came together to pack, check, and sort 100+ bags of groceries. All “overrun items” were either distributed randomly in the bags waiting for distribution, or were taken to the Heart-to-Heart Food Pantry in Grandview to be shared with their patrons.

November 25th – With the help of a dozen more volunteers, bags were double-checked for last minute additions then delivered, curbside, to families who picked up their bags during pre-arranged hours. Food items and supplies that can be used in the coming months were stored appropriately.

November 26th – Yet another group of volunteers made a series of runs through the Tri-Village community to drop off the last of the bags, on request, at the homes of identified families.

In talking with school personnel about children who might be in need of support when they did not have access to school lunches, we were reminded that many of these same children may come to school hungry in the morning – and hungry children have trouble focusing on learning! The Tri-Village Packers are now providing tubs of grab-and-go food to each school, on request, so that teachers have something to offer to these youngsters. Some organizations have offered to “adopt a school” (that is, provide the tubs of food and replenish them over the course of the school year), while other individuals and organizations have offered to donate money to cover the cost of keeping those tubs  stocked (“This month, the food in this tub was provided by ______”). St. Mark’s Episcopal Church is filling the tubs for Tremont School, while Three Creeks Capital Management is filling the tubs for Stevenson School. If you would like to know more about sponsorship of the Grab-and-Go tubs, please  trivillagepackers@gmail.com .