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PAWKids is a neighborhood community hub on Atlanta's westside providing holistic resources to support self-sustainability.
Its Community Outreach Program includes Claudia's House, a food pantry dedicated to food insecurity and family wellness.
How you can help:
- Assemble snack bags
- Make sandwiches for the food pantry and mobile food unit
- Provide dinner for the after-school program
- Make Break Boxes (see below)
- Assemble Produce and Pantry Bags through Compassion Kitchen (see below)
City of Refuge is a faith-based environment that helps individuals and families transition out of crisis.
Its programs include Housing, Youth Development, Health & Wellness, Job Training, Its programs around food include:
- COR Kitchen - This kitchen prepares and serves three hot and healthy meals per day, every day, for residents, employees, and guests. You can sign up to volunteer to work in the kitchen for breakfast, lunch or dinner if you are 18 or older.
- Snack Bags. COR provides snack bags throughout its programs, but especially in its Youth Programs. This is a great way to volunteer if you are under 18!
- Coming Soon - Fresh Food Market The Transformation Center will feature a market or grocery store on the center’s first floor to address ongoing health disparities in what can be considered a food desert.
The SFT Soup Kitchen feeds 500 to over 700 people every Saturday. The only requirement for the people to be fed, is that they are hungry. Several organizations including parishes, religious denominations, colleges, high schools and companies participate in preparing the food.
How you can help:
- Volunteer on Saturday to help prepare food and serve the guests.
- Work in the Community Market to organize and stock the shelves
- Organize a food drive for the pantry
- Volunteer to serve coffee to the homeless
- Make sandwiches to distribute to the homeless
INNOVATING FOR SOLUTIONs
The Compassion Kitchen Project was founded by our family during Covid in partnership with the Rice family. Restaurants were shut down leaving many workers without income. Non-profits were struggling as they could no longer rely on volunteers to come in and make meals. Families who were not able to work were suffering from food insecurity.
The Compassion Kitchen Project was founded by our family during Covid in partnership with the Rice family. Restaurants were shut down leaving many workers without income. Non-profits were struggling as they could no longer rely on volunteers to come in and make meals. Families who were not able to work were suffering from food insecurity. Our idea was organize and connect to provide a process that enabled individuals to make a greated impact with their funds while supporting restaurants, non-profits and families suffering from food insecurity.
- We provided one place where people could make tax-deductible contributions
- Funds were used to purchase meals from local restaurants, providing work for their employees
- Meals were delivered via volunteers to non-profits as well as families suffering from food insecurity
CKP also continued to innovate post-pandemic by providing pantry bags and produce bags to communities suffering from food insecurity. Often, families cannot afford to buy the basic pantry supplies which makes it difficult for them to make nutritious meals at home. In addition, they lack access to fresh produce due its the high cost. Through its grass roots network, volunteers assemble produce and pantry bags each month to deliver to families suffering from food insecurity.
THE BREAK BOX INITIATIVE
I started the Break Box initiative out of my work with The Compassion Kitchen Project and PAWKids. I realized that in low-income families children received most of their food and nutrition through the public school system. So what happens when the students are on break???
To address this gap, I started the Break Box Initiative to collect
I started the Break Box initiative out of my work with The Compassion Kitchen Project and PAWKids. I realized that in low-income families children received most of their food and nutrition through the public school system. So what happens when the students are on break???
To address this gap, I started the Break Box Initiative to collect boxes of food for families appropriate for the length of the school breaks (one week for Fall break, February break and Spring Break and two weeks for the December holiday break). Boxes include spaghetti and sauce, canned meats, rice, beans and tortillas, soups, canned fruits nad vegetables, bread, peanut butter and jelly, cereal, oatmeal and healthy snacks. We partner with YMSL, NCL and other organizations and individuals to put together the boxes and deliver them to PAWKids, the Chattahoochee Trailer Park and other areas in need.
This is a great activity for a family to do together as it reminds them that while breaks from school mean fun vacations for some, it can often cause a stressful situation for low-income families without the resources to cover additional meals and childcare during these periods.