School district turns unused cafeteria food into take-home meals for kids
An Indiana school district is working to make sure students have enough to eat.
Students usually get breakfast and lunch at school, but on the weekends at home, some go hungry.
WSBT reports Elkhart Schools is partnering with a local nonprofit called Cultivate to provide weekend meals through the use of unused food.
“Mostly, we rescue food that’s been made but never served by catering companies, large food service businesses, like the school system,” said Jim Conklin, with Cultivate. “You don’t always think of a school.”
Cultivate makes individual frozen meals out of discarded and unused food. On Fridays, About 20 students are given a backpack with eight individual frozen meals.
“At Elkhart Community Schools, we were wasting a lot of food,” said Natalie Bickel, with student services. “There wasn’t anything to do with the food. So they came to the school three times a week and rescued the food.”
The Elkhart school system hopes to expand the food program to other schools.