As the 2015 LIVE UNITED Campaign gets under way, we can reflect on the many ways our community comes together to advance the common good. United Way of Story County (UWSC) focuses on education, income and health – the building blocks for a good quality of life. We know we can’t do it alone, so we recruit people and organizations who bring passion, expertise and resources to get things done. Our latest columns are highlighting these three areas and some recent developments in each. Last columns featured education and income. Next, we’ll feature health.
UWSC prides itself on working to create affordable and accessible essential services for healthy lives. This includes access to healthy food.
Unfortunately, there are hungry people in our community. Story County’s Free and Reduced Lunch rates have increased in recent history; county-wide, one in four students is eligible for the program.
What does that mean when those kids aren’t receiving food at school? To feed at-risk students over the weekend, UWSC brought the BackPack Program™ to several Story County elementary schools. The program sends a backpack full of food home with a student over the weekend and extended school breaks. Food in the backpack includes peanut butter, oatmeal packets, fruit cups, shelf-safe milk and more. The program has been expanded after the benefits were reported by teachers – kids showed up Monday ready to learn with full tummies. Five elementary schools in Story County participate with the help of United Way, and 175 kids participate each week.
Over the summer, food insecurity for families trends upward as there is no longer access to the Free and Reduced Lunch program at school. UWSC is helping meet the summer demand by coming together with other community organizations to run summer food programs in Ames and Nevada. We talk about the summer program under our education pillar as well, but the program started as a need to feed kids over the summer. Adding enrichment has been a very positive addition to the program.
This summer, 5,479 meals served 158 kids in Ames and 3,063 meals served 114 kids in Nevada. A total 8,542 healthy meals were offered to 272 kids in our community through the summer program.
In addition, we also support Boys & Girls Club of Story County which serves a noon meal over the summer months, and we partnered with Youth and Shelter Services to open a fourth summer food site at First United Methodist Church this year. Nearly 1,000 kids were served at the church this summer. The number of children being fed is growing, and the number of community partners involved is growing!
Other health-related examples of UWSC’s work includes continued support of the Mental Health Wellness Center and its programs like art therapy, support for counseling and therapy for individuals recovering from substance abuse, and grants help fund the ongoing operation of the Story County Dental Clinic.
The momentum is building, and we’re excited to share how we’re moving the needle in this area. We invite you to see that great things happen when we live united. You can give, you can advocate and you can volunteer.