Weekend Survival Kits

Written by: Kelly Hall & Leslie FitzWater, Mid Michigan Food Bank

Thirty percent of those served by the Mid Michigan Food Bank’s hunger-relief network are children. According to Feeding America, child hunger can impact a child’s growth physically, emotionally, and academically and make them more likely to suffer poverty as an adult. Feeding America also cites that 20.5 million children depend on free or reduced-price school meals to keep them from going hungry.

The Weekend Survival Kit program at the Mid Michigan Food Bank serves elementary school students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. Most of these children receive a majority of their food at school during the week which is why this program steps in to provide food for the weekends.

Every other Friday, volunteers bring in kits that contain two breakfasts, two lunches, three dinners, and two to three snacks to the schools for distribution. Last school year the program began by distributing Weekend Survival Kits to 250 kids in four different schools in mid-Michigan. Due to the word getting spread around about the program and an increase in economic need, there has been a significant increase in program participants. At the end of this year a little more than 1,600 kids in 33 different schools were receiving Weekend Survival Kits.

At the end of each year students are surveyed. As part of that survey they were perfectly able to articulate the benefits of the program and the effects hunger had on them.

When asked “How would this year have been different without the Weekend Survival Kit?” answers such as these were given: “I wouldn’t get as much energy”, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep as much”, “I wouldn’t be able to exercise”, and “We wouldn’t be able to pay attention, we would be drowsy.”

Frequently, community members ask whether the children really need the food with all the other programs available. The students that were surveyed succinctly described how important this food is: “If I didn’t take the food on Friday’s I wouldn’t have food for the weekend.”

“I wouldn’t be able to eat as much as I should be; I would only eat once a day.”

“[It would] be bad [if I didn’t get the kits] because we run out of food and have no money.”

“We don’t have money so I only have snacks, this gives me meals.”

And as one child simply said: “I would go hungry.”

For more information on the Mid Michigan Food Bank, visit http://www.midmichiganfoodbank.org/. Or watch the video below!

Call for Responses: Why I Do Service-Learning, Why I Will Continue to Do Service-Learning

Written by: Learn and Serve – Michigan Team

The Learn and Serve – Michigan team recently created a section for our blog called “Why I Do Service-Learning and Why I Will Continue To Do Service-Learning.”

We are asking service-learning experts, like you, to help tell the story of why our commitment to service-learning endures. Please click on the survey link below and fill out the form to share your response as to why you do service-learning and join others in support of service-learning in Michigan.

Your answers will appear on this blog, the Learn and Serve – Michigan’s Resources Blog in the future, in an effort to inspire people across the state to integrate service-learning into their school’s curriculum and to continue to participate in service-learning.

Please follow this link to tell us why you do service-learning, and why you will continue to do service-learning: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6SX3BPR

We look forward to receiving your responses!