No Child Goes Hungry (NCGH) is pleased to provide an $1100 donation to Hopkins County Schools in Madisonville, Kentucky. The school district will use the funds to support two initiatives to mitigate area food insecurity. The District will use a portion of the grant to purchase food items for its Backpack Blessings program, which provides weekend food items to 527 food-insecure students—a number that is up from 478 students in just one month due to the financial impact of COVID-19. The remaining funds will be used to build two little free pantries for families in need—one in St. Charles and a second in Nebo, KY.
According to April Devine, Hopkins County Schools’ Director of Pupil Personnel, the Backpack Blessings program is typically run by local churches. However, since area churches are unable to assemble due to COVID-19’s social distancing mandates, volunteers are temporarily unable to continue supporting the program.
Our Backpack Blessings program typically ends when school lets out for the summer, but we have decided to extend it into the summer months since our area has been hit so hard by COVID-19 cases,” said Devine. “Madisonville-Hopkins County has been one of the fastest-growing COVID-19 populations in Kentucky. We have had multiple families in quarantine, and our unemployment rate has skyrocketed. The funds from No Child Goes Hungry will help us extend our offering to students and families as we enter into the summer months.”
Hopkins County Schools is also leveraging the creativity, innovation, and passion of its students and faculty to create its Little Free Pantries.
The students at our two high schools take woodworking courses, so we plan to work with them to build the Little Free Pantries,” said Devine. “Since our students are learning from home at this time, our teachers will work out a plan to drop off certain parts of the pantries to participating students to build at home and then coordinate the final construction. We want students to collaborate on the process, even though they are separated right now.”
According to Kären Rasmussen, NCGH Founder and Director, the ability to both support an existing program and help Hopkins County Schools expand its avenues to aid those in need is the core purpose of No Child Goes Hungry.
We are committed to putting funds from our donors into the hands of people on the front lines of mitigating food insecurity in their communities,” said Rasmussen. “If we can bolster an existing program, and give volunteers an innovative way to further their efforts, we believe we can spread every dollar as far as possible in our efforts to ensure that no child goes to bed hungry. Let’s feed some kids!”
To learn how NCGH can help support your local hunger advocacy initiative, contact us today.
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