The Plymouth Community School Corporation is adding to its community partnerships, to make sure students get the nutrition they need, even when they aren’t in school.
Superintendent Andy Hartley told the school board last week that the school corporation is working with a food rescue organization called Cultivate, to provide children with frozen, microwaveable meals. “This finally got off the ground and running a couple of weeks ago, and we’re able to provide for 50 of our elementary students and we spread that out amongst our four elementary schools,” Hartley said. “And the feedback has been really, really positive.”
That’s in addition to the school corporation’s existing partnership with Blessings in a Backpack, which also gives students meals to take home. Hartley said the two programs are collectively serving over 200 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. “We just pulled together all of the partners in the school corporation, Cultivate and Blessings, and are looking at how we can continue to be efficient and effective with that and serve as many of our kids as possible with that,” he added.
Hartley expressed his gratitude to the two organizations. “Child hunger and food insecurity is certainly a real challenge for some of our children,” he said, “and I just wanted to highlight them today and thank them for their efforts and partnership with our schools to ensure that our kids have just the basic needs met.”
At the same time, Plymouth Community School Corporation employees are giving back to those who help their students. They recently raised over $1,200 to donate to Blessings in a Backpack, according to a school corporation press release.
