Serving the Students of all Florence County School Districts - Hunger doesn’t take the weekend off; you can make a difference to children who go home from school on Friday with no food for the weekend in your community Our story began in April 2013 when a group of caring ladies wanted to do something to help children. We learned quickly that hunger was a problem for many of the children in Florence County elementary schools. More than half of the elementary children receive free or reduced cost school meals during the week but on the weekend some of them have limited available food. They are “food insecure” meaning they may or may not have enough food to avoid hunger. Help 4 Kids developed a very simple plan to fill the weekend hunger gap by directly and discretely providing bags of food to these hungry children.
1. Food is packed.
3. Food is delivered. Twice a month the seven self-serving, child friendly nutritional food items are purchased. They are delivered to our warehouse space and packed by volunteers on Tuesday, Thursday and designated Saturdays. Each Thursday they are delivered to sixteen elementary schools. Someone in the schools places the bag of food in the child’s backpack on Friday. The child has food for the weekend!!
• On September 19, 2013 six schools received 193 bags.
• On October 31, 2013 twelve schools received 396 bags.
• On November 28, 2013 thirteen schools received 424 bags.
• On January 23, 2014 fourteen schools received 490.
• On May 29, 2014 fifteen schools received 522 bags.
• On September 4, 2014 fifteen schools received 629 bags.
• On September 25, 2014 sixteen schools received 739 bags.
• On November 18, 2014 seventeen schools received 808 bags
As of October 1st, 2017 we are now delivering 1,931 bags in Florence County. Each week 6,464 food items must be purchased, packed and delivered to fill the weekend hunger gap for these Florence County elementary school children! As we continue to reduce and eliminate childhood hunger one child at a time, we need help from our caring Florence community. Help 4 Kids is funded by grants, pledges, and individual donations. Our service is for the 38 weeks of the academic school year. One bag of food costs $2.70: One ten dollar donation will feed one child one month, and a one hundred dollar donation will feed one child for the year. Another way for your organization to help is with a One month food drive for One item. The items that we need the most are our protein items: Vienna sausage, Beanie Weenies, Spaghetti & Meatballs. All these items must be the single serving, pop-top cans. Here’s how it will work:
• Your organization will identify a contact person and Help 4 Kids will work with that person.
• Help 4 Kids Florence volunteer will deliver to your business a large container and informational poster for the food drive.
• You determine if your food drive will be one week or one month.
• Help 4 Kids volunteer will return and pick up collected goods as determined by the time frame of your drive.
• An inventory of the goods will be made and shared with your business.
• Employees will be thanked by Help 4 Kids Florence board member. Help 4 Kids Florence highlights an immense challenge faced by our community, hungry children, and has developed a practical process to do something about it. These food insecure children as identified by their schools need your help. Won’t you please join us by hosting a food drive with your employees? Joining us in filling the weekend hunger gap for our youngest citizens is the ONE thing to do! You may contact me at any of these numbers: 843-629-1017 (home), or 843-245-5219 (cell), 843-580-4111 (Help 4 Kids Google number). E-mail address is [email protected] or [email protected]. Please visit our web site at: www.help4kidsflorence.org and learn even more about us. Sincerely,
Mrs. Welsh, President
Help 4 Kids Florence
