Terrie Jarvis, Program Director of Food4Kids Guelph expressed her organization’s sincere thanks for our January 2023 donation. Here’s what she had to say…

It’s hard to know where to start in thanking all of you, my colleagues at 100 Women Who Care Guelph, for your generosity in supporting FOOD4KIDS GUELPH with your donations in the past quarter.

100 Women Who Care Guelph

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Notes from Terrie Jarvis – Food4Kids Guelph Appreciation

Just to recap the role of this charity, now five years old …

• Food4Kids addresses a situation that most people haven’t thought about, that a number of children in our very own community are at risk of going hungry at weekends.
• That’s because about 5% of the children attending local schools live in families that are struggling to make ends meet, with not enough money left over to properly feed their families after paying for rent, transport, clothing, medical and other essential expenses. 
• Those of us with children or grandchildren in our lives can predict the first thing most kids say when they walk in the door: I’m hungry! What can I eat? 
• But some children often go home to almost empty cupboards and fridges. 
• Those kids really depend upon getting some free food at school, Monday to Friday, through the many wonderful breakfast and snack programs run at most schools in Guelph. But then what do they do on weekends?
• Sadly, weekends can be a terrible struggle for them with inadequate food at home, and these elementary school children are too small and young to solve the problem for themselves.
• That’s where the Food4Kids program kicks in, by providing the most needy children with a nutritious weekend food bag to take home from school.
• Currently, we are supporting 400 school children out of the 700 we think need our help in Guelph, and we are at 30 out of 39 elementary schools.
• Through our bulk buying, we are able to provide each child with a great food bag containing 16-18 healthy items, for the low cost of around $15 per child per weekend. And what a difference this makes!
• By feeding the children on the weekend, it helps their whole family by reducing stress and allowing them to spend limited funds elsewhere.
• And during school holidays, when schools are closed, Food4Kids provides grocery gift cards to help the families purchase food.

So right now, Food4Kids is spending your donations on food to provide healthy weekend food bags for kids that really, really need this support from our community.

Collectively, our 100 Women team donated $13,775 to help the Food4Kids Guelph program.

And saving the best news for last, this generous donation has allowed us to take all 20 children off our waiting list to start receiving weekend food bags, and there’s enough money left over to create space for another 5 children as well!

Thank you so much for helping Food4Kids to help even more children in Guelph, who no longer leave school on a Friday wondering how they will be fed on the weekend.

And thank you also for the wonderful volunteering from 100 Women who have stepped up to help on a regular basis. We welcome any of you to find out more from us about how YOU could become a Food4Kids volunteer, too.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for making a difference in children’s lives!