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Serving Robbinsdale Area Schools- Meadow Lake and
Forest Elementary Schools.
Community Partners Working
to fight childhood weekend hunger
Weekend snacks are sometimes hard to come by for many young
people in Robbinsdale Area Schools communities. For many children in poverty, a
school breakfast or lunch are their only nutritional meal of the day. During the
weekend, many young people are faced with either non-nutritious food or simply
go hungry. Church and community partners are banding
together to help end childhood weekend hunger, support healthy growth and
development and school success. In answer to this
need, Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Plymouth paved the path to
community-wide engagement by partnering with PRISM food shelf, General Mills and
Zachary Lane Elementary. Volunteers help pack over 60 weekend snack packs each
week for students in poverty at Zachary Lane. Now your
help is needed.
Weekend Kid Packs Expanding
to Meadow Lake Elementary and Forest Elementary
With the guidance of lessons learned from Beautiful Savior
and Zachary Lane, Bonfire Ministry is seeking your support to expand the focus
on ending weekend childhood hunger for children attending Meadow Lake (New Hope)
and Forest Elementary (Crystal) schools.
Free and Reduced Lunch
Counts Significant at Meadow Lake and Forest
Due to the high percentage of children on free and reduced
lunch at both Meadow Lake and Forest, Bonfire Ministry will be focusing on a
school-wide initiative to fight weekend hunger, improve nutrition and exercise
and lower childhood obesity. Over 1300 weekend kid packs are needed to serve
Meadow Lake and Forest students. Additional community partners will ensure
successful outcomes!
Community Partner
Contributions are Needed
Want to help? The following community resources are needed
for success of the weekend kid pack program at Meadow Lake and Forest. Donations
of kid pack items (juice boxes, apple sauce, raisin boxes, granola bars, Easy
Mac, boxes of cold cereal, cheese or peanut butter cracker packs, fruit snacks,
oatmeal, cocoa packets), financial donations, and volunteers to help
assemble or deliver the weekend kid packs are needed. Partner contributions will
be recognized through various forms of media.
Hunger Facts
One in five area households with children are food insecure.
Children in those households simply do not get enough to eat- they had to cut
the size of their meals, skip meals, or even go whole days without food at some
point during the school year.
In Minnesota, 14% of children live in poverty. Over 40% of
the people served at food shelves are children.
Hungry children face unnecessary barriers as they strive to
become healthy, product, and engaged members of society.
Hunger contributes to poor academic performance and
disruptive behavior in the classroom. Missed meals also increase tardiness and
visits to the school nurse.
Packing Days
Packing Days for weekend
snacks for our hungry kids in the neighborhood is held the
fourth Tuesday, 4-7 p.m. We pack at Emergency Food Network (just east of
Boone on 54th). Volunteers are needed. If
you would like to help, please contact Cassie Marino at 763-504-4980 or
cassie_marino@rdale.org.
2012 packing days:
Tues., Jan. 3 (for December 2011)
Tues., Jan. 31
Tues., Feb. 28
Tues., Mar. 27
Tues., April 24
Tues., May 29
Contact
Pr. David Lechelt
at 763-537-3653 or
dlechelt@stjamesincrystal.org (St. James Lutheran Church)
Bonfire Ministry
7708 62nd Ave N
Brooklyn Park, MN 55428
www.bonfireministry.org
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