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Area School Kids Help End Hunger

Holmes School Children

This April, schools across our community are participating in Beyond Hunger’s CAN DO Community Challenge – a hunger relief campaign designed to heighten awareness about local food and nutrition security. The Challenge encourages schools, organizations, and individuals to become more involved with Beyond Hunger by participating in a fun, community-wide competition. Schools and organizations get points for participating in advocacy activities, collecting food items from Beyond Hungers’ top 10 most needed items, fundraising, and volunteering.

In March, Holmes Elementary School’s “Community Cares” leadership club students started preparing for the challenge. They discussed ways to get their whole school to contribute and even created a bulletin board to help the school keep track of its fundraising goals.  Holmes 4th grader Alayna J. is part of the leadership club and has been happy to be involved, “You’re having fun. You know you are donating. You know you are competing for the trophy. But at the same time, you are helping a lot of people – I’ve felt really happy and really proud.”

“The school competition is a fun way for our entire community to get involved in a grassroots effort to raise awareness about hunger that isn’t far from home. Last year we served 8,000 individuals from Oak Park and River Forest. Importantly, we want people to know where they can come to get food when they need it – our youth have powerful voices,“ says Teri Miller, Director of Development at Beyond Hunger.

Anyone can double their impact by contributing to a school’s fundraising efforts and helping Beyond Hunger at a time of year when donations are typically at their lowest. For the first time, Beyond Hunger has a $100,000 matching challenge for donations received in the month of April. This matching challenge enormously impacts local families as every dollar donated is doubled.

Visit gobeyondhunger.org/CanDoCommunity

 

Original article appeared in the Wednesday Journal on April 5, 2023