Nourishing kids to be their best, in school and life

Food insecurity is a problem that affects over 16 million children each year. That means that as many as 1 in 5 children lives in a household that doesn't have adequate means to buy the proper food for healthy and fulfilling meals. For many of those children the lunch that they receive while at school will be the only nutritious meal they eat during the day.

An organization local to Gordon Food Service, Kids Food Basket, is working to combat those upsetting statistics. Kids Food Basket mission is to nourish kids to reach their full potential. They do that by providing sack suppers for kids in West Michigan who may not have a meal waiting on the table for them when they get home from school.

Kids Food Basket is currently serving 8,000 kids from 47 different schools per day. In order to make their operation run, they rely on volunteers who come to their warehouse to sort food, pack suppers, decorate bags, and deliver the meals to schools around the area. The organization runs smoothly with helpful volunteer coordinators and a wide range of volunteers who come either on a regular basis, or whenever they can find the time.

While a lot of good is currently being done to nourish kids, there are still 30 schools on the waitlist who are requesting to be serviced by Kids Food Basket. The good news is that they are currently in the process of moving to a larger facility with more room for volunteers, food storage, and other growth opportunities.

As part of Relish Works Heart to Serve initiative, the Grand Rapids Relish Works team spent a morning working in the packing room at Kid's Food Basket. Our team’s job was to bag ham roll-ups that would later be included in that night's sack for supper.

The simple job allowed us the time to reflect on the work we were doing. We had very meaningful conversations with both those in our group, as well as the other volunteers, about how the work we were doing would impact the kids in a very tangible way that evening. As a fairly new formed team, the packing shift also provided us an opportunity to simply catch up in general; talking about our weekends, continuing to get to know one another, and forming a deeper camaraderie.

As we washed our hands and took off our hairnets, we spoke with the employees about their new building, the farm, and most notably, the cooler up front that is completely covered in signatures from all of the folks who had previously volunteered at Kid's Food Basket.

The Grand Rapids Relish Work’s team at Kids Food Basket

We left the facility feeling excited to continue our relationship with Kids Food Basket by packing suppers on a regular basis and spending time helping their team harvest the farm, because Relish Works believes in the mission of Kids Food Basket and that no child should go hungry.

-Kaelin Porter