Together with You, We Help to Alleviate Children’s Hunger

When students head back to school in the fall, Freestore Foodbank adds backpacks filled with school supplies to our distributions of children’s lunches. Octavia, Freestore’s summer meals program leader, is pictured at left with two of the children.

“Each week in the summer, we visit 12 sites around Cincinnati, providing more than 7,000 lunches a month,” said Octavia. “I add backpacks to the program, knowing that kids need more than food as summer ends. On the last day, children line up for them as we hand out lunches. They love this day!”

Freestore also provides kid-friendly, shelf-stable meals to 2,000 children weekly through the Rural Summer Meals (RSM) program. For ten weeks, we feed children who have transportation and access barriers that make attending other summer meals programs difficult. We supplement the meal deliveries with offerings of proteins and fresh produce, pictured at right.

During the school year, we serve 5,600 students weekly through our Power Pack program and about 13,000 households through our School Pantries. Together, these programs operate in about 160 sites across 19 counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, with more schools applying and added each year.

At Freestore Foodbank, we know that a hungry child can’t learn; we take care of the food so students can focus on school … and being kids!