We are students from Exploris and our Food for Thought service-learning group created a fundraiser for funding healthy and fresh breakfast, snacks, or lunches for our peers who struggle with food insecurity.  We were concerned about food insecurity and how it affects kids in school. We started by researching how unhealthy food impacts learning and health based on celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s Ted Talk “Teach Every Child about Food.”  


Food insecurity means that kids, friends in our classes, even families that are in our community, don’t have food and water to be healthy and hydrated, and they don’t have control over this.  We have started the Food for Thought project because when our friends in need do not have a healthy breakfast, they can’t focus well in school. It is also important to have a very good lunch so you can focus on the last part of the day. We are saying this from our experiences. When you don’t have regular healthy meals, then it shows on your report card. It can even affect your whole life with long-term health problems.


We are bringing back the tradition of helping people without food at school, but that requires your help.

 

At many other schools, they have state lunch programs (free and reduced-price lunches.)  However, we are a non-profit public charter school, so we don't get the state lunch money for people in need. Our students that qualify for “free lunch” rely on donations to the school of random snack items, and limited options from our hot lunch provider. We want our classmates to have healthy choice options, a voice in what they eat each day, and dignity.


We know that our Food for Thought project can make a change in our school community for our friends, but to do that, requires a donation from you! Right now your donation will be used to solve this problem by purchasing fresh food items, non-perishable healthy foods, a small refrigerator for fresh food deliveries, milk, and other perishable items. So please, make a change by making a donation to seed the Food for Thought program.


For more info, please visit our website and our blogs to follow our stories.

https://sites.google.com/exploris.org/foodforthought/home