This week marks the beginning of our Kids Summer Meals program, an initiative in partnership with the USDA that feeds children living in food insecure households.

This summer we will work hard to help feed 6,000 children at more than 130 Summer Meals sites through partnerships with schools, churches, and youth centers across central & eastern North Carolina. All week organizers of these sites have been coming to the Food Bank to pick up boxes full of breakfast and lunch items such as cereal, milk, pre-packaged sandwiches, and applesauce.

In the photo below, organizers of a new Summer Meals site in southeast Raleigh are at our Raleigh Branch loading dock, picking up enough food to serve lunch to 47 children for the first part of the program. By the end of the summer they expect to feed 100 kids every day, and will make several trips back to our Raleigh Branch to stock up!

We are thrilled to partner with this new site in the Raleigh North/Millbank Apartments neighborhood that has grown out of a dedicated community effort to serve a tremendous need in the southeast Raleigh area. Because of them, we will now be able to feed kids in a community that we had not been able to reach in summers past. Together we are one step closer to giving every child the chance to have a hunger-free summer.

Photo of Summer Meals partner picking up food at Raleigh Branch

Organizers of the Raleigh North/Millbank Apartments Summer Meals site load boxes of food at our Raleigh Branch to bring to their southeast Raleigh community.