Support from our community provides many opportunities to feed our neighbors facing hunger. Thanks to a grant from the Joy in Childhood Foundation, we can provide fresh meals to children and families with the purchase of a food sealer.
Food Bank of the Rockies strives to provide nutritious food through our programs and has worked for many years on continuously improving the nutritional value of our product mix. For years, we’ve offered hot meals through our community kitchen, serving children in the metro area with balanced, healthy meals.
We offered packaged meals to sites without a kitchen. The packaged meals were good, but we wanted to offer fresh items through all our children’s programs, not just those nearby with kitchens. To do that, we needed a food sealer. The sealer allows us to create freshly packaged meals in our kitchen to safely distribute as grab-and-go meals. It also allows us to provided sealed produce trays for Totes of Hope (weekend food for children). The packaged produce is safer for kids to transport and doesn’t require immediate refrigeration. We were fortunate to receive a grant from the Joy in Childhood Foundation to help us purchase our new sealer this spring.
It couldn’t have come at a more critical time. Our children’s programs switched to a drive-through model due to COVID-19. We could no longer provide hot meals and fresh items at Kids Cafe sites. All our meals became grab-and-go. With our new sealer, our kitchen can safely prepare these meals and produce trays. We distribute the fresh meals and produce trays through drive-through distributions, ensuring children and families have access to these nutritious items.
Children and families have expressed how grateful they are to receive fresh food during this unprecedented time. We’re grateful to the Joy in Childhood Foundation for helping make this program possible!
