Everyone can take action and make a difference in their community!

Involve your community and school community/parent council in food drives, bake sales, or other fundraising opportunities to help support hungry kids and empower your community to directly impact children in your neighborhood schools.

At the next parent council meeting, let your school community know that there are children in their own school, possibly in their child’s own class, that are coming to school hungry. Look to these parents for strengths and talents they can share. Welcome all who would like to help, be flexible and creative and enjoy setting up a program that will make a difference and feed kids – helping them to grow, learn
and play!

Ideas to engage within your school(s) could include:

Create a sharing table, pantry or fridge – supervised by a member of school staff, school families/students can bring in extra food to contribute to the sharing table. Students who need food can choose items for lunch from the table with the help of the supervisor. Non-perishable snack items are recommended as extra items can be kept for future need.

Families who would like to help can coordinate with school staff to send an extra lunch or non-perishable snack items to the school on a rotating basis. Any extra non-perishable snack items can be kept for future need.

Investigate connections with local markets, bakeries and grocers to
determine if they have an in-kind donation program that can support your school or community group. Try local, independent locations first then consider chain stores in the area.

Community Group Support

Community Groups come in all shapes and sizes and share the same goal: feeding kids in their community. A community group may arise from an existing group or may be created from a group of like-minded people who come together to feed kids in their neighborhood schools. The group will find its own volunteers and AHS approved kitchen space and BB4CK can provide resources such as school connections and fundraising support. Community groups can participate in special projects such as baking days or snack support, and support schools by making and delivering lunches anywhere from once or twice a month to 1 to 2 days a week.

Kitchen Delivery

Schools enrolled in kitchen delivery receive their lunch and lunch items from BB4CK’s downtown kitchen. Lunches are created by volunteers in the BB4CK kitchen and are delivered by volunteer drivers to the schools. Kitchen delivery schools manage their program through BB4CK’s online portal and may receive lunches every day of the week or receive combined support by the kitchen and a neighborhood community group. Kitchen delivery is available only for schools within the delivery zone.

Funded Schools

BB4CK funding for grocery shopping can be provided directly to schools in the form of grocery gift cards. Lunches are then made within the school by a group of student, staff or community volunteers. Some schools engage their culinary arts, paced learning, or leadership/volunteer club students in lunch creation. Grocery receipts or their copies are submitted to BB4CK. Lunches are created for up to
$2.00 maximum per lunch. Creating a monthly budget helps groups manage their funds and forecast future funding needs.