Children are identified by the guidance counselors and nurses at participating schools as the most “at risk.” There are no set criteria to participate. Volunteers purchase the food, pack the bags, and deliver them to the schools. From there, a school employee delivers the food to the participating students. The children take the food home on Friday afternoon, every week.
Please check out Find Your Community to see if we have a program in your community. If we do not have one in your area, reach out to your trusted school contact to inquire about resources.
100% of every dollar contributed to End 68 Hours of Hunger goes directly to support our providing food for food insecure children.
95% of all donated funds go directly to buy, store, pack, and deliver food.
5% of donated funds are allocated for bank fees, charitable state registrations, filing fees, insurance, financial audits, background checks for volunteers, and more.
All local programs are completely volunteer!
The way our program works is town by town, one school at a time. Check out How to Start a Program.
School personnel have observed these behaviors in children who are food insecure:
- Hyperactivity
- Aggressiveness
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Distress
- Passive/aggressive behavior
- Excessive absences
- Repetition of a grade
- Difficulty forming friendships and/or getting along with others
- Physical illnesses, including frequent stomach aches, headaches, and sore throats
- Short attention span or general inability to concentrate
An example of what might be given to a child:
- Two packets of oatmeal
- Cereal with shelf-stable milk
- Mac & Cheese
- Tuna and crackers
- Hormel Compleat meal
- Box of pasta with sauce
- Canned chicken with instant mashed potatoes and canned corn
- Granola bar, pudding cup, fruit snacks
If allergies or other dietary restrictions are known, food is adjusted as much as possible to accommodate these special needs.
Every effort is made to spend as little as possible and yet obtain the maximum nutritional value for each child. While fresh fruits and vegetables would be wonderful, this program must rely totally on non-perishable food. We are always conflicted between three competing goals:
- Keeping things healthy
- Keeping things calorie-dense
- Keeping things inexpensive
We try to keep as healthy as we can using fruit, granola bars, canned tuna and/or chicken, and instant oatmeal. We ensure there is sufficient protein with peanut butter and canned tuna/chicken, and we keep carbs for the calories and to feed their brains.
We can only use non-perishable food, but we do have donors who donate fresh fruit and vegetables weekly and we use them whenever they are donated, but we don’t buy them because we don’t know how long it might be until they go out to the children.
We know that the children need a minimum of 3,000 calories over the weekend, so we ensure that we provide at least that many. When we are financially able to provide more, we know that they will share the extra food with others in the family.
We welcome suggestions about how you think we can do more with less!
Volunteers never come in contact with the program’s children. The distribution is all done by school personnel and anonymous except for this particular school contact.
Become a sponsor!
- Donations of $1,500 or more are acknowledged on our website.
