Feed Northland Kids Missouri COVID-19 Response

Feed Northland Kids has been heavily involved in addressing increased hunger in our area of Kansas City. The pandemic created a need for additional food sources for families, not just children, which has been our singular focus since our formation in 2009. To address this lingering issue, we created a Community Food Kit, a grocery bag filled with 18 to 20 shelf-stable items and a fresh loaf of bread. In some ways, this was a recreation of the most popular foods in our 11 in-school pantries which were temporarily unavailable with a 14-week school closure last spring. In that time frame, we created four distribution hubs, worked with seven school districts and fed many families each of those 14 weeks, with a total of 9,300 kits picked up or delivered.

Early September brought a hybrid learning environment for many of our schools and thus, limited access to the pantries. We were asked to continue this program by most of the participating districts and launched eight sites attached to seven districts in mid-September. We quickly reached a 750 per week combined total of needed kits and to date have created, distributed or delivered nearly 19,000 Community Food Kits. Our own volunteer crew takes care of our largest district with 350 kits distributed at one school each Weds and 150 at the other school (where 40 kits are delivered by eight volunteers). In our Clay County districts, we are able to provide a good sized produce box (fruit, veggies, greens), along with the food kit.

We are able to make this kind of steady impact due to some great partnerships:

• a donated warehouse, paying only for the staff to pick up pallets of purchased or donated food, and deliver packed pallets to each of the eight sites weekly.
• agreements for discounted bulk purchasing from two regional grocery chains and a few discount houses.
• dedicated and energetic volunteers who help pack the pallets at the warehouse, pack the kits at the eight sites and are present for distribution each week. 
• school districts who come alongside with their own volunteer and staff crews.
• responsive social workers in each building who help ensure families receive the assistance they may never before have needed. 
• committed donors (including corporate GlobalGiving) and individual GlobalGiving Donors, and many companies, grantors and individuals who choose to make a difference in their local community.

We have made fast friends with several young children who accompany their parents to pick up the kits. We are greeted with sweet drawn pictures, pride in a lost tooth and mostly, excitement for what produce might be in the box this week (strawberries and grapes are most popular). On cold days, some patrons bring us hand warmer packets. We are there, rain or shine, freezing cold or sweltering heat. We've become adept at setting up canopy tents and steering carts of packed bags. It is very appreciated. We have patrons who've lost their jobs - one woman in particular whose company closed after 25 years in business - she'd worked there for most of that time; families who had to move to a smaller home, a few single parents who might be living in their car, neighbors picking up for their neighbors who need the food but are unable to get to our site. It is heartbreaking and heartwarming, all in the span of a four-hour distribution line, which is sometimes 30 cars deep at the site we manage.

Thank you for continuing to make our work and impact possible. We cannot do this without a large force of funds and friends. Your generous hearts make us smile with gratitude.

Our first round of our new Community Food Kit program served 9300 families in a 14-week time span. With the continuing pandemic, many families in our area need on-going assistance.

We launched a second round of Community Food Kits in September. Seven Northland school districts are participating and our distribution sites are now on school properties. Included is a nice photo overview of how we pack and distribute 700 kits each week. To date, over 6,000 families have picked up or received this 14-lb bag of shelf-stable food with a fresh loaf of bread. NEW this time, is a lovely 12 lb produce box.

We receive heartfelt gratitude from our families. One woman is a server who lost her job and was very uncertain how she would continue to feed her family. She was thrilled to pick up a kit and produce box from one of our larger school district sites and told us "I didn' t know what I was going to do, then our school social worker sent the info about your program. You are amazing, thank you".  Another family receiving these kits via delivery is a recently widowed Mom with four kids. She homeschools the kids during the pandemic due to health issues for several of her children. Her husband's death was unexpected and she is having difficulty dealing with so many things at once. Food and produce arriving each week to her door has helped her tremendously.

Our hope is to continue this program through the end of the current school year, totalling over 20,000 kits.  For more information and additional photo's visit our website and facebook page.

Your donations via GlobalGiving have the potential to be matched! We're grateful for any financial support you or your company may be able to provide. The need is great, but our supporters are greater!!

Links:

• Feed Northland Kids website
• Facebook page for Feed Northland Kids