For children living in poverty, the struggle of finding the next meal can be tough. A school in Indiana has teamed up with a local nonprofit organization to ensure that children falling below the poverty line are being fed at home during the weekends.
Woodland Elementary School in Elkhart, Indiana sends around 20 students home for the weekend with eight individually frozen meals to get them through to the next week.
The genius idea was thought up by nonprofit organization Cultivate. They specialize in reducing the amount of food wasted in schools!
Food at an elementary school was going to waste. Now, it goes home with needy children. https://t.co/0HfjaGoxMF
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 4, 2019
Cultivate, who launched in 2016, partnered with the Indiana School starting March 29 to give kids in need one less thing to worry about.
“Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system,” the founder of the organization Jim Conklin told WSBT.
The leftover food can be repurposed into a new meal for others to take home for as little as 75 cents, according to their website.
In the county of Indiana, nearly 13 percent of children aged 5-17 live in poverty. Many suffer from food-insecurity.
Not knowing where the next meal is going to come from is daunting. Leaving school at the end of the week knowing you won’t eat properly until the next school day must be challenging.
MADE WITH LOVE: To make sure no kid goes hungry, this Indiana school district turns unused cafeteria food into take-home meals for students in need ❤️️ pic.twitter.com/LyhH0OS6FF
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 3, 2019
One mom in particular has benefited greatly from the program, as her husband recently lost his job.
“It’s been a struggle as a mom. There’s times where it’s been just peanut butter and jelly” Angel Null told The Post.
Following the program, her children have been able to eat a decent meal, choosing from French toast and red velvet macadamia nut pancakes for breakfast, and hot dogs and drumsticks for lucnh. A massive improvement from their usual diet!
Talk of the program has quickly spread across social media, with many readers completely in favor of the idea.
For this week's feel-good Friday, we're shouting out an Indiana school district that works with nonprofit Cultivate Culinary to repackage unused cafeteria food into take-home meals for students who need it. Great ideas like this deserve to be shared! https://t.co/0VCEMuBoNv
— American College of Education (@ACEedu) April 26, 2019
“Why can’t all schools do this? I am an educator and it is awful that we throw food away when we have students going hungry after they go home and especially during the weekends,” one person asked on Twitter.
This therefore begs the question, should all schools take part in this process? The amount of food that is wasted on a daily basis in schools is staggering.
Recycling the leftover food and feeding the less privileged is surely the way forward.
Credit: CBS News