When the Weekend Comes, St. Stephen’s Helps Kids with Food Insecurity
by Susan Dowd, Outreach Committee member
If you’re an elementary school student who relies on breakfast and lunch at school Monday through Friday, what happens on the weekend? What does your empty stomach feel like on Monday morning? Well, if you’re a student at Ridgeview Elementary School in Bloomington, you now have critical help from St. Stephen’s.
In August, the Outreach Committee approved a grant in the amount of $10,750 to Every Meal (formerly The Sheridan Story) to support its Weekend Food Program for the 2021-2022 school year. This grant, like all approved by the Outreach Committee, addresses one or more of the committee’s funding priority areas of Hunger, Youth, Homelessness, and Seniors.
Every Meal has a simple mission: to fight child hunger through community and school partnerships. The organization began in the spring of 2010 at Sheridan Elementary School in Northeast Minneapolis when school staff discovered students hoarding food from the school cafeteria on Fridays in order to have enough to eat over the weekend.
The Weekend Food Program works like this: each Friday volunteers discreetly pack a four-to-five-pound meal bag directly into the backpacks of children who need extra food over the weekend. Last year, 68 children at Ridgeview received free and reduced lunch, and many of those students also participated in the Weekend Food Program. Without these meal packs, they were at risk of experiencing food insecurity outside of school.
Studies show that when children are well-nourished, they improve academically and experience an overall increase in self-worth. St. Stephen’s funds will subsidize the cost of purchasing food, storing it in Every Meal’s warehouse, and transporting the meal bags to Ridgeview Elementary on Fridays.
You can learn more about this organization and this specific program from Every Meal’s website.
SUPPORT THE BASH AFTER DARK
The Bash has been a part of our community since 1988 and in its 34-year history, the Bash has raised over $900,000 for outreach. These funds enable us to support organizations like the Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery each year. We hope you’ll join us for an elegant evening stroll through the woods this fall as the Bash After Dark returns on Saturday, October 9th. Visit the Bash After Dark page to learn how YOU can support this event and help us raise the funds to continue supporting our outreach partners in 2022.
