Of all the no-brainer good ideas out there, feeding hungry kids ought to be up there with fire departments and hospitals.
Whatever the situation, it's not the kid's fault if they don't get enough to eat. And going hungry unleashes a horror show of domino effects for kids.
Malnutrition sets back growth and development, both physically and intellectually, as well as leaving kids with weakened immune systems. What's more, the stress created by going hungry also wreaks havoc, especially where learning and brain development are concerned.
Simply put, all kids need access to good, healthy food.
Understanding that hungry kids usually can't focus on learning, schools will usually either offer food in the cafeteria or have snack programs to make sure kids get some nutrition during the day.
At Woodland Elementary in Elkhart, Indiana, kids get both breakfast and lunch. And now, kids in need there won't have to worry so much about what to eat when they're at home.
Woodland Elementary has partnered with a local non-profit called Cultivate, which goes around to restaurants, catering services, and even school cafeterias, to gather perfectly good, never-served food that would otherwise be wasted and turn it into meals for people in need.
"You don't always think of a school. Over-preparing is just part of what happens. We take well-prepared food, combine it with other food and make individual frozen meals out of it," he told WSBT.
"At Elkhart Community Schools, we were wasting a lot of food," Natalie Bickel of student services said. "There wasn't anything to do with the food. So they came to the school three times a week and rescued the food."
Now, some of that would-be waste will be going home with some students.
So, every Friday for the rest of the school year, 20 kids will take home a backpack containing eight individually frozen meals, prepared from rescued food by Cultivate, to eat over the weekend.
And they're happy they did. "It's making a big impact," said the Chamber's Melissa Ramey. "I am proud of that. It was heartbreaking to hear that children go home on the weekends and that they don't have anything to eat."
Even before the school year is out, the Elkhart school system is already looking at expanding the program to other schools in the area.
h/t WSBT
