Be the Change |
Feeding the Children written by: Liesel Schmidt / photography provided by: Food For Thought
F
ood is something that most of us give little thought to. Breakfast, lunch, dinner — We eat without considering how hard it can be for some people to manage even the most meager of meals. And while these three essential meals are part of what we work so hard each day to provide, there are countless families all over the country and throughout the world who go without. It is the children of these families — children who face hunger and live in a world of food insecurity — who are the focus of organizations like Food For Thought. Started in 2010 by Tiffanie Nelson, FFT has grown from an idea to help feed six students in need at one school to a program that now serves 35 schools in Walton and Okaloosa counties through an in-school backpack program. “We had our first introduction to public school in 2010, when my oldest child was starting kindergarten,” says Tiffanie. “That was also my first moment of awareness that there was a wellhidden hunger issue in our community, and I felt a strong desire to help. I was given $300 by my church, and my kids and I went shopping. In partnership with my son’s school, we enrolled our first six students and from there, we have continued to grow to meet the demands of our community.” That demand has naturally changed over the years, and during the 2019-20 school year there were more than 3,500 foodinsecure children enrolled in FFT. With a mission to “remove the negative impacts of hunger and empower a child to get the most out of their education and development 103
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