Friday, August 28, 2020
With schools scheduled to re-open next week, parents, teachers and students will be facing unique challenges as they navigate this unusual back-to-school experience. We have been in conversations with schools that distribute food through our In-School Pantry program. They have expressed concern with reopening our pantries on school property due to safety reasons, but share in our concern for the families that rely on the food distributed at these pantries. Our current plan with our school partners is to distribute fliers with a listing of where our drive-thru distributions are located as well as a listing of the closest pantries to the school. If you are looking for food, please click here.
The last thing we want are families and students who are hungry to worry about where their next meal is coming from as they begin school. For the past several years, we have proudly provided food to families in partnership with the Lipman Family Farms Backpack Giveaway and Back to School event. While the event looked different due the pandemic, we were still able to provide Harry’s Helping food kits to 480 families in Immokalee. We are so grateful for those who helped make this possible.
This week, your food bank distributed 879,959 pounds of food into our five-county footprint. We were mindful that the food we provided this week will help prepare our school-age students with the food necessary to have a good start to the school year. We are grateful that perhaps the most important lesson our students are learning is that our community cares enough to ensure that they are not hungry. They are learning that when a community pulls together, miracles can happen. If you are well, able, and willing to volunteer, please click here to sign up.
While we are not educators, we thank you for helping us teach this lesson. We cannot do this without you.
Together, we are making a difference.
To support our efforts, please click here.