Feed and Read
Project Hunger
FeedandRead
The aim of the Summer Feed and Read Program is to reduce hunger and reading loss during the summer months. The Feed and Read program provides nutrition, mentoring, and free books to low income children during the summer school break.
The Summer Feed and Read program mobilizes a network of community centers, churches and parks and recreation sites. Each site provides lunch for the children, half through the USDA Break Spot program and the other by utilizing their own center’s kitchen resources. Some centers may require participation in the program to work with the mentors, but some public sites will provide both books and meal packs weekly. Each child will receive reading-level appropriate books to keep as a personal library.
Last summer a total of 9,621 books were provided to the 1,000 participating children. Through our partnership with The Children’s Hunger Project over 10,000 back-pack meals went to the neediest children for at-home consumption.
Funding for the program began back in 2009 with a group of concerned citizens who began a special appeal called Project Hunger to ensure Brevard’s children didn’t go hungry over the summer months . . . when children did not have access to school lunches. Over 12 years, they raised nearly $1M – funding everything from refrigerated trucks and walk-in freezers ensuring food could be transported and stored.
While the committee never imagined there would still be so much need all these years later, they were committed to finding a long-term solution. That’s why the responsibilities of making sure kids don’t go hungry over the summer has been fully transitioned to United Way of Brevard (UWB) and The Children’s Hunger Project (TCHP).
Project Hunger
United Way of Brevard assists the efforts of Project Hunger as part of our commitment to improve the health of our community. Project Hunger is a grassroots group focused on providing food to hungry kids during the summer months when kids do not have access to free and reduced price lunches provided at schools during the school year. Project Hunger began as an emergency appeal in 2009 as the ‘great recession’ began and has raised over a half million dollars to fight childhood hunger in Brevard. The intent for Project Hunger was to be a time-limited appeal to address the concerns of childhood hunger during the summer months, but the concerns continue.
Last year marked the 10th year of the Project Hunger Summer Feeding appeal. Over the last ten years this committee and our generous community have raised $870,500! That has resulted in 603,843 meals for children over the summer months. During the 2018 appeal Project Hunger raised $75,554.
In 2012, the project took the first critical step to improving the overall logistics of food distribution to pantries with the purchase of a refrigerated truck. In addition, both the South Brevard and Central Brevard Sharing Centers now have walk-in freezers ensuring that our community can properly store and distribute much needed fresh and frozen items. And 4,382 meals were purchased and put into the backpacks of needy students in elementary schools with extremely high levels of students eligible for free and reduced cost meals.
United Way of Brevard serves as the fiscal agent for Project Hunger and covers all costs associated with the appeal including printing and postage.
