Mission

Our mission is to provide food and books to students and families who are identified as food insecure in Cleveland County. We do this through our weekend food bags, school break food and book deliveries, and our annual Community Table Thanksgiving Meals. In our county, 1 in 3 children are food insecure. Extended breaks from school such as Spring Break and Winter Break leave hundreds of students without a reliable source of food they would normally receive through the school nutrition program at both breakfast and lunch. With the work of Cleveland County Schools social workers and our team of volunteers, we provide a bag of shelf-stable, kid-friendly food on weekends as well as a large box of shelf-stable food, a bag of fresh food, and age-appropriate books during the 4 major breaks from school throughout the year to bridge this nutritional gap: Spring Break, Summer Break, Thanksgiving Break, and Winter Break. During Summer Break, we deliver 3 times since this is the longest break for students. Additionally, on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Day, we help host and coordinate 6 Community Table Thanksgiving Meals across Cleveland County to which all members of the community are invited. Throughout the year, we make over 1,500 deliveries of food and books and feed over 1,400 people across our county, making sure students and families do not go hungry and aren’t alone.