Tote Me Home - Food for Kids!

The kids are going back to school so that means Tote Me Home starts back up again.  We are expected to begin with 200 kids in the Collinsville School District.  The School District did get approved for a grant that will provide free breakfast and lunch to all students!  This will mean no child will go without food during the school day.  They will still need us to provide food for the weekend.  These bags go home with the kids on a Friday and help supplement what they have at home.  Parents or guardians are contacted to make sure this is ok.  We also help the Parochial schools as well upon request.  Please continue to support us and we make sure food is provided to those children in need.  Thank you!

We are moving out of school mode and into summer!  We partner with the HHH Summer Camp and Tutoring program at St. John UCC Church in Collinsville.  This is a FREE program M-TH, 12-2pm for the months of June and July.  We offer a hot lunch for children 4-18 years old.  There are also activities to keep those brain cells active!  We offer reading tutors, STEM, music, art, physical education and just lots of fun!  This year we are teaching bike safety and maintenance.  We also offer the Tote Me Home program to our campers.  We have the parents sign up if there is a need.  All are very grateful for the extra food.  Tote Me Home is able to do this with your financial support.  Summer does not eliminate the problem of hunger.  Please remember us.  Thank you!

The Collinsville Food Pantry relies on many volunteers to keep all of our projects up and running.  The Tote Me Home group is no exception.  The Ladies Auxiliary from the Knights of Columbus are the ones who do they physical labor on packing and delivering the bags to the schools.  We are now providing over 200 bags to our 8 elementary, Intermediate, Middle and High Schools, collectively.  These ladies come in on Friday mornings and pack the bags with the set menu for that week.  They then divide the number of bags for each school and pack them up in their cars for delivery.  The schools are waiting for them to arrive to receive their number of bags to hand out to their students on their way home.  This is all done by 9am.  The Ladies Auxiliary also donates financially to Tote Me Home.  They have been unable to offset the rising costs of food that it takes to support this program.  Collinsville is an example of a village taking care of one another.  Please continue to donate to this fantastic and unfortunately much needed program.  Thank you!

The Collinsville Food Pantry is in the process of renovating our new building.  We hope to be moving out of the Church by the end of the month.  The Food Pantry manager has been monitoring our inventory, making sure we only order what we need in anticipation for our move.  The less we have to move, the better!  That brings us to our Tote Me Home program.  The program began again for the beginning of the school year.  They are constantly ordering food to fill the 200 plus bags a week.  The First United Methodists have generously offered their building to house Tote Me Home until we are ready for them to move to the new building!  The Ladies Auxiliary are filling the bags and taking them to the 14 area schools for them to distribute every Friday.  It has been such a relief to know that the program is being well taken care of.  The Collinsville Community has yet again stepped up to assist us.  Please continue to support Tote Me Home and the growing need for food security.

The Collinsville Food Pantry's Tote Me Home program has continued to grow throughout the school year.  We believe this is a direct result of the rising gas and food prices.  More families are reaching out and needing help.  We are fortunate enough to have Ameren (power company) grant us $40,000 to fund our program for the next year!  Wow!  This is will be so much help but we still need funding as our numbers are climbing.  We are finishing up the school year at 201 children.  Out of that number 6 go the the High School.  There are 6 teenagers that rely on this food for the weekend and probably even more but they might be too anxious to ask for help.  We constantly worry about the kids who are not familiar with our program.  Please help us continue to feed these kids and enhance our program so we can reach more.

Thank you for your support!