Off Central: Mesa non-profit provides schoolkids with food for weekend
Jan 4, 2018, 5:10 AM
A volunteer with Arizona Brainfood fills a bag of food for Valley schoolchildren to take home over the weekend. (KTAR News/Griselda Zetino)
(KTAR News/Griselda Zetino)
PHOENIX — Mac and cheese, cereal, fruit and granola bars are just some of the items Gaye Kelley was packing into grocery bags on a recent Thursday morning in Mesa. The bags were later delivered to elementary school children.
“We are helping a lot of kids who may not have anything to eat over the weekend,” she said.
It’s part of an effort led by the Mesa-based non-profit called Arizona Brainfood. The group discretely provides a bag of food to schoolchildren who otherwise may not get enough food to eat over the weekend.
Ruth Collins said she started the organization after a conversation she had with a Mesa teacher a few years ago.
“I was talking to a teacher who had kids who would come to school on Mondays hungry,” she said. “He was trying to teach while at the same time trying to come up with some food for these kids.”
Collins said she was shocked to hear so many children were not getting enough food to eat over the weekend. Feeling like she had to do something to help, she got together with several friends and family members and they began filling up bags with food.
“We started in 2009 with 100 kids and two schools,” she said. “And then, every year, it’s just grown, grown – snowballed.”
Arizona Brainfood now provides bags of food to more than 3,500 children in 115 schools every weekend, mostly in the East Valley.
Collins said she credits the growth to the support she has received from community members, like Gaye Kelley, who said she is happy to do her part in helping prevent children from going hungry over the weekend.
“What we are hoping is that they will arrive at school on Monday being able to live up to their best potential,” Kelley said. “Anything we can do to help, that’s what we’re doing.”
