By Jenna Larson
Students at Tate Alternative High School and their families will no longer have to worry about whether they have food to eat every night.
“What we have been doing so far is students can come and say they need [food] from the pantry, and we will let them in,” said Amber Herring, the student and family advocate at Tate.
The students can access the pantry every day, and families are allowed to on Mondays and Fridays during certain hours, Herring said.
What brought Tate to implement the food pantry were such factors as school population and the number of students with free and reduced meals, she said.
“We have a lot of homeless students and families,” she said.
By starting at the school, the food pantry hopes to target more families and students who also need help.
“I know for the kids, it’s a sigh of relief,” Herring said.
If students don’t have anything for dinner, they can stop by the pantry and grab something, she said. Having the pantry guarantees them a dinner every night.
With around 125 students, food is one thing they don’t have to worry about, Herring said.
“A lot of our kids have mental illnesses or are from a broken family, so a lot of times I find kids who don’t know when their next meal is coming,” she said.
Especially over the weekend, it’s a long time to go without knowing when their next meal will be, Herring added.
“This will be up and running [year round],” Herring said. Students and families will be provided with meals every day of the school week and during holidays.
Herring said when she found out the Johnson County Crisis Center and the Trinity Episcopal Church would help the school, she was excited to hop on board.
“We really want to encourage people to receive the service, and the first step is to normalize it by welcoming everyone to receive food, no questions asked, no data, no names, just pick stuff off from the table and enjoy,” said Sarah Benson Witry, the Food Bank and emergency assistance director for the Crisis Center.
The center hopes that people will become more familiar with it and its programs and more willing to receive the services, she said.
“Trinity Episcopal Church has been providing food and hygiene products since the beginning of the school year,” Witry said. “So the pantry service has already kind of started.”
The food pantry provided by the center was meant to enhance what it already has to offer, she said.
“We are here to expand some of the services it has already been doing,” Natalie Veldhouse said, the community food-projects coordinator at the Crisis Center.
Food provided at these pantries is donated by many local business and will go to the school several times a week depending on demand, Veldhouse said. Staff and volunteers are excited to see how this will turn out.
“Right now, we are seeing what works, and we have some flexibility in terms of maybe bringing more food on some days and not others and seeing how it goes,” she said.