POLK COUNTY, Fla. — The number of food-insecure children in Polk County has doubled and one nonprofit is depending on the community to help feed them.
KidsPACK provides meals to disadvantaged children in Polk County schools each Friday to sustain them on weekends when they do not have access to school food.
“We do about 3,000 of these a week, if not more,” said kidsPACK Volunteer George Goelz.
The non-profit serves more than 3,000 children a week. That’s more than double the amount in 2019 before the pandemic, when they were feeding about 1,200 food-insecure children a week.
“It’s staggering; I'm actually at a loss for words to really explain it because these kids look like you and I,” said Patty Strickland, Executive Director of kidsPACK.
Strickland said with supply chain issues, certain staples have been difficult to purchase in bulk, like applesauce.
“What we do is we reach out to the community, and we say we need applesauce and then they graciously go to Publix, Winn Dixie or wherever they may go, and they will buy the applesauce,” said Strickland.
A lack of funding has also made it hard to meet the demand. Currently, kidsPACKhas 308 children on a waitlist.
“You hear all the time about sponsoring a child in a foreign country and it only costs you this amount of money. What I'm asking for is $25 a week and you can sponsor a child in Polk County,” Strickland said.
She said community support is critical to their operation. As school lets out for the holidays, volunteers like the ones from Boring Business Systems can bridge that gap and commit to feeding children in the community.
“I think the biggest part to me is, how do you forget kids? They are our future at the end of the day,” said Par Sahota, president of Boring Business System.
