Caucasian Little schoolboy holding an apple wearing a protective mask and a backpack

Hunger Free VT: School meal programs need your help! Sign up to Volunteer

Does your business support employees in volunteering? School meal programs need your help!

Hunger Free Vermont recently heard from the Agency of Education that many School Nutrition Programs in VT are understaffed to the point where they have had to stop providing extra meals to children who are not enrolled (such as children being home-schooled and the younger siblings of enrolled students), and have had to stop providing after-school meals and snacks (and the programming that needs to accompany them). At a time when families with children are facing higher rates of hunger as a result of the pandemic, we cannot waste the opportunity to serve every possible meal to Vermont kids.

In order to address this immediate and critical need while school districts work out their staffing challenges, Hunger Free Vermont will be serving as a single point of contact for connecting schools with sources of volunteers that meet their specific meal program needs.

We have heard that school meal programs need help with a range of tasks (mostly not cooking!) like these:

  • Being a calm and friendly adult presence during meal times, and assisting students to negotiate COVID protocols
  • Providing simple programming after school so the meal can be provided
  • Assisting with meal distribution at open pick-up sites
  • Helping to serve meals

In most cases, help is needed for an hour or less at a time.

Thank you in advance for any help you’re able to provide. As you all know, our school food service professionals have stepped up massively over the course of the pandemic to provide food for our communities, and we’re really hoping we can help support them in turn.

Please contact Shelby Hammonds At Hunger Free Vermont if you would like more information, or if your employees are interested in being connected to a school in need in your area: shammonds@hungerfreevt.org or via phone at (802) 210-4491.