Giving Compass' Take:
- The Food Bank of North Alabama is an excellent example of how community partnerships between schools and banks can help engage rural students in addressing food insecurity.
- How can rural donors help strengthen community partnerships?
- Read more aboutincreasing food pantry distribution.
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One of the leading voices combating food insecurity and founder ofFeeding America, Joel Berg, has a tried and true refrain: “To be schooled, you must be fueled. To be well read, you must be well fed.”
Joel is one of many speakers andauthorson the subject of food scarcity and food deserts and a direct influence on Brandon Renfroe, a science educator atGeraldine High Schoolin rural Northeastern Alabama. Brandon became passionate about this work when seeking his PhD and did copious research to better understand thefood deserts that exist within his home state of Alabama.
He quickly noticed thatmany school districts in and around the Black Belt,although doing excellent work in the realm of food security, did not have dedicated, on-campus food pantries, which would serve in tandem with other services already in place.
To address this issue in his own school system, Brandon reached out to theFood Bank of North Alabamaand the timing was fortuitous. During this conversation, the representative from the food bank shared that they happened to be interested in starting a food bank in a public school and they were wondering if Geraldine High School would be willing to serve as a pilot program. Also, it got even better. Due to federal grants, the food shipments would not incur a cost to the local school.
Renfroe is quick to note Geraldine’s tremendous indebtedness to the North Alabama Food Bank, while also touting the need for diligence in forming sustained partnerships. “I tell my students: Do you have to be especially talented or intelligent to accomplish good work? No. But you do have to be persistent,” says Brandon.
In the summer of 2022, Renfroe received the good news. The partnership was on.
It works like this: on Thursdays, a dedicated truck delivers the much-anticipated boxes from Huntsville, Alabama, to Geraldine, approximately 75 minutes away. Each week, the Geraldine pantry receives between 150-200 food boxes. From there, a trusted group of students helps Brandon unload the truck and label the boxes.
“Some food banks are relegated to school closets, with the onus placed on the kids to come get the food. We’ve tried to make the process as easy for the kids as we can: we bring the food to them. In reality, we have made ours a mobile pantry,” explains Brandon.
By means of additional student helpers, the food boxes are delivered to the 70+ students who have signed up for the program. Brandon acknowledges that oftentimes the process of admitting food insecurity is an uncomfortable one, “students can be shy or embarrassed”. To address this, Brandon is active on social media and uses strategies that empower parents to reach out to him directly in order to add their child to the list.
Read the full article about rural food banks by Mason Pashia at Getting Smart.