Food 2 Kids fights hunger in local schools

Junior League volunteer Beverly Hall packs lunches for the Food 2 Kids program. Food 2 Kids is collecting peanut butter throughout the month of September.

by Alison Loughman

Believe it or not, some students do not count down the minutes until the Friday bell strikes.

These students, among the 8,000 at Clarke County Schools receiving free or reduced lunch, face weekends without meals or anyone to prepare a meal for them.

Yet thanks to Food 2 Kids, a program from the Junior League of Athens and the Food Bank of Northeast Georgia, fewer kids will worry about going hungry on the weekends. Instead, they can channel their time and energy into school on Monday morning.

Counselors, teachers, and nurses identify students as “in need” based on physical signs such as thinness and behavior like hoarding food. These students receive a bag filled with six meals and additional snacks once a week, adding up to a total of 280 meals over the course of 40 weeks, at a cost of $260 each.

Susan Dodson, former president of the Junior League and chairperson of the Food 2 Kids program, brought the idea to her organization in 2008. Members loved it, and since then the number of children receiving meals has jumped from 80 to 250.

The program hit home for Dodson when she worked in the classrooms of her two daughters at Timothy Road Elementary, dealing personally with children in need.

“The idea that any one of these kids that I had grown to love and adore, that they weren’t eating, just really did it for me,” said Dodson.

The items in the bags include Pop-Tarts, ravioli, and peanut butter. The Food Bank requests donations of peanut butter during September, which can be used by kids to make their own sandwiches.

Organizations like UGA’s Athletic Training Club contribute to the Food Bank through canned food drives. The Training Club has collection bins at the Tate Center, Aderhold Hall, Creswell Hall and Myers Hall. The drive, which runs until Sept. 28, hopes to collect 6000 cans of food and add inter-university competition to community service.

“LSU is doing the exact same thing down in Baton Rouge right now,” said Elise King, a senior and president of the Athletic Training Club. “Our goal is to beat them, and have it announced at the football game [at Sanford Stadium on Oct. 3].”

Without donations, Food 2 Kids would be impossible: as the only program the Food Bank pays for, it relies on a $14,000 donation from American Idol’s “Idol Gives Back” fundraiser.

Saundra Arnold-Smith, a counselor who manages Food 2 Kids at Timothy Road Elementary, packs meals in backpacks donated by her church, Chapelwood United Methodist. Arnold-Smith worried that kids would be ashamed to receive help in front of their peers, but saw differently when a fourth grader ate her Food 2 Kids food at lunch.

“I was the only one who knew [that she received Food 2 Kids], and the other kids were so cool about it, even though it didn’t look like their stuff,” said Arnold-Smith. “I know she felt good about that.”

Another student came into class excited to show his teacher the peanut butter sandwich that he had made for himself. Since he received his meals from the school, he had never brought his lunch from home before.

“That’s what we’re finding more and more of: it gives these kids a sense of normalcy and a sense of belonging,” said Tina Laseter, development director of the Food Bank. “When you’re in fourth, fifth grade, that can be really tough.”

The Food Bank has Food 2 Kids donation bins at Grady College, Aderhold Hall and Terrell Hall, which collect peanut butter in September and pop-top ravioli in October.

The Athletic Training Club is also collecting canned food at the Kroger on Barnett Shoals Road Sept. 20 from 1 to 5 p.m.

edited by Elissa Ewald