Those who run an Indiana school district are doing what they can to make sure that fewer kids are hungry.
The Elkhart Community Schools recently started a program along with the nonprofit Cultivate Culinary, which helps feed needy residents in the area.
“There is just a need,” Natalie Bickel, the supervisor of student services, told InsideEdition.com. “Our kids are hungry.”
In the Elkhart Community school district, 64 percent of the student body qualifies for free or reduced lunch. In the fall, six staff workers helped come up with the idea to start a pilot program to combat hunger in the area.
The plan works like this: Cultivate Culinary takes home leftover lunch food and other food from local businesses. They then make meals for needy students, freezing them so they can take the food home. They report that 20 students will leave school for the weekend with eight meals to eat over the course of a weekend.
Each meal includes a starch, protein and a vegetable. They clearly are doing what they can to provide nutritious meals to those who need them.
The program started last week at Woodland Elementary School and will continue on each Friday until the end of the school year. It will help feed needy students from kindergarten to sixth grade.
The hope is to continue the program and extend it to more children and additional schools in future years, Bickel told Inside Edition.
“I know when students go home hungry during the breaks and during the weekends, that’s not a happy time,” Bickel said.
The district is doing what it can to help make that problem not as severe for those who really need help.
