With one week left to round up for backpack meals for kids, shoppers and owners have rounded up more than 300,000 times for $135,000 donated for the food insecure kids served by Orange County Schools and TABLE. This week we’re reporting on how your Round Up funds are feeding hungry kids at six schools in the Orange County Schools district. (Next week we’ll report on TABLE.)
Fresh, healthy food valued by Round Up recipients
Our first year partnering with Orange County Schools was a huge success—Round Up funds purchased 1,128 boxes of healthy kid-friendly packaged food and fresh produce given to food insecure kids for winter break, spring break, and the first two weeks of summer break (before summer school and summer camps begin). An additional 840 boxes of food were provided for food insecure kids attending summer camps hosted in two low-income neighborhoods.
We asked the kids, their parents, and staff at the six schools to provide feedback about the food we provided and how we could improve the partnership this coming school year. Here’s what they shared with us:
Fresh fruit is a huge hit: The kids loved the pears—they’re a rare treat when other fruit is so much cheaper. A teacher shared that one of her students observed, “Hippies have the best apples!” At the summer camps, kids gobbled up local blueberries on their snack breaks.
Produce is valued highly: The kids loved the sweet potatoes and carrots we sent. The top request for this year’s breaks—fresh green beans! They also asked for bell peppers—for the kids to snack on and for cooking.
Healthy packaged foods pleased: The kids gave thumbs up to the healthy, low-sugar alternatives we included for kid favorites—Field Day’s instant oatmeal packets and creamy natural peanut butter, as well as Nature’s Path Whole O’s boxed cereal. This year staff asked if we could add dried beans and rice, which were described as staples that help stretch food dollars.
Partnership with OCS relies heavily on staff and volunteers
Our partnership with OCS is unique in that we work directly with the school system. Our other partnerships are with hunger-relief organizations that do the work of identifying eligible kids and families and connecting them with our food donations. The partnership with OCS relies heavily on staff and volunteers:
Staff at Weaver Street order the food, sort the cases of food onto pallets for each school, and deliver the food to the schools. Many times, door frames had to be removed to get the pallets inside the buildings.
School social workers and counselors identify the students who would receive the food and organize the food sorts. They arrange for families to pick up the food, and in cases where both parents have day jobs, they deliver the food to homes.
Neighborhood volunteers and parents set up the food for sorting and box the produce and packaged items. This year more volunteers are needed to bag and weigh the green beans, dried beans, and rice.