Bringing in the Bags

Sometimes you can’t do it alone. You might want to but sometimes you need to lean on someone and ask for help.

Starting your day hungry is not productive. Keeping yourself motivated in the classroom is hard, when you are hungry. Last year Dr. Deborah Marks, Principal of Clover Hill High School realized that a number of her students were coming to school hungry, without eating breakfast and without money to purchase lunch. She investigated and found out that a lot of families are finding themselves in grave financial situations and the children are suffering, going without basic meals. The idea of starting a food pantry was invented and with the help of teachers and the PTA, food pantries were set up throughout the school. Basically any student who needed something to eat could approach their teacher and ask for something to eat. Also teachers who found students that were having issues could offer them food from the food pantry. The food pantry has been funded the past year with donations from parents who knew about the food need and teachers who were able to donate.

The PTA decided to try finding a partner to assist in gathering more food for the food pantry. A phone call to Journey Church was made and a meeting set up to discuss the possibility of a partnership. The Journey Church asked its congregation to bring food items on Sunday, January 22, 2012 and leave at the bumper of their car. Food items that would be used by the hungry students at Clover Hill High School. Outreach members of Journey Church and PTA members of Clover Hill High School gathered up all the bumper bags and stored them in an empty room at Clover Hill. An entire room was filled with wonderful food items such as peanut butter, jelly, soups, pop tarts, waters, Capri suns, crackers. Enough food to feed any student that needs it for the rest of the year.

A big thank you to all families from Clover Hill High School and Journey Church in partnering together to raise food and awareness in the community about the lack of food in some student’s life. Together we can make things happen and make some student’s life a little easier.