It’s the last week of school for Maureen Joy Charter school in Durham. The school’s Executive Director Mark Bailey sits in a Kindergarten classroom preparing to distribute boxes of non-perishable food and produce to families of those children. Maureen Joy partnered with Durham Children’s Initiative and the Food Bank to provide these essentials to 200 families in preparation for school letting out for summer.
“A break in routine actually provides a lot of challenges for our families and our kids,” Bailey relayed, “because they’re not able to rely on some of the same structures that normally are there for them each and every day and a really important part of that is regular breakfast and lunch being provided at school.”
Mr. Bailey is thankful that during the school year the students can rely on those meals. 90% of the student body at Maureen Joy qualify for free and reduced school meals. Beyond that, Bailey said it’s hard to really know how food insecurity is impacting these families. With the Food Bank’s partner agencies seeing up to a 42% increase in people visiting, it’s safe to say budgets are not stretching as far. We know that without these partnerships, kids and families could see a big impact.
“Being in third grade is hard enough, making friendships in seventh grade challenging enough without having to add any other challenges on top of that,” said Bailey.
We’re thankful that with your continued support, we can continue to nourish our friends and neighbors and build on the solutions to ultimately end hunger. See the distribution at Maureen Joy and hear more from Mr. Bailey and our other partners here.
