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I am continually working with my kids to help them to be able to be people that give back to the community that they live in. I have been lucky enough to be able to work with some brands in the past that have allowed me to be able to do this and to get my children involved.
Odwalla, a brand that I tried in the past truly love is working with a program called Champions for Kids that works to works to mobilize MILLIONS of people by providing training and resources to improve the lives of children in communities across America and beyond. Their goal is to mobilize 20 Million people by 2020. One of the ways in which they are trying to mobilize individuals is through providing healthy breakfast options for all children once they leave school for the summer.
I know that even in my own community we have over 70 families who rely on our local food bank to be able to have the food they need throughout the year. Many of the kids in the family’s attend the same schools as my own and they rely on the breakfast food that they receive at school and the free and reduced lunches that they receive to supplement the food that they receive from our food bank.
With that in mind I set out to again have my kids make a difference in our local community by going out and purchasing Odwalla products for our local food bank to donate to help feed these children over the summer. On top of the list we also reached out to all of the second grade classrooms in my daughter’s elementary school to begin a few week process to collect breakfast items that could be donated by a second graders and their families to the food bank – again to support their efforts on feeding families that really need it in our community.
The shopping process itself went pretty well and we went to our local Super Walmart which is about 15 minutes away from our home. In entering the store I did have some difficulty finding the products that I was looking for, but I ended up finding the Odwalla bars themselves in the produce section of the store. I would not have originally thought to look here, but knowing how natural the products are, it seems to make more sense that this is where they were now that I think about it. On top of the bars, I was also looking for the new juice boxes that they are carrying for kids, but my store did not carry this, and the only beverage that they did carry was not one that I thought would stay good for the time that I needed it to.
I was impressed with the variety of bars that were available from Odwalla, and in looking at the nutritional content I was also very impressed. My kids and I snacked on an extra bar that we purchased and the kids devoured it (a good sign for the kids that are going to be receiving these at our local food bank.
This past weekend was the spring food drive for our Food Bank so this project fit in nicely with that. We went though the house looking for any other food that we could donate and found some extra as well. After a full morning of Soccer, we ventured over to our Food Bank to deliver our food.
The Director of our local Food Bank is always excited to see my kids and I as she knows that we always bring some fun things. She was quite happy with the delivery that we made on this visit as well as she mentioned that this was the first time that people have brought this type of food in and she thought it would be a great addition to the food that they were planning to give out in the near future to the local families utilizing their services.
At the end of all of this my eldest daughter came to me and said, can we do something like this again? As you can tell this was a proud dad moment and we are now looking for future ways to engage with both the food bank as well as in other areas in the future. I am hopeful that the second grade project will be successful as well as I know that this will be a big hit with them as well once we get them all involved!
More pictures from this experience can be found here: https://plus.google.com/photos/100572181234104788072/albums/5875561216939237505?authkey=CN2Zr6W7-YuPggE
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It is so great that you got your kids involved in such an important cause. I really do think this is a wonderful way for them to learn about the needs of others 🙂
Great donation!!
Even in wealthy Northwest Arkansas, about 1 in 4 kids is food insecure. I am so glad Champions for Kids is helping with this worthy cause. Thank you and your children for your participation!
Such a great post, Chris. As someone who’s been to a few food banks in my life, I can totally imagine that getting all those boxes of Odwalla bars was quite different than the usual food that is donated. Your daughter’s smile, knowing she had done something so great, was awesome.
Great way to get the kids involved. The fact she mentioned this is the first time anyone’s donated food like this inspires me to try to donate more healthy items in the future.
It’s great to see people getting their kids involved in donations such as this one! Such a great learning experience and wonderful memories to have. 🙂