Providing Food for Needy Children and Teaching Lessons in Nutrition is the object of this semester-long service learning project. The goal is for the youth participants to plan for, budget for, shop for, and to distribute nutritional foods to needy children in our community in line with their fourth grade curriculum learning. Our youth volunteers will be working in conjunction with a local non-profit organization in our community called The Table. The Table serves 30 needy children in our community by filling discrete backpacks with nutritious foods that they take home with them each Friday, ensuring that these children have nutritious meals over the weekend. Our involvement with the local non-profit will engage new volunteers and allow them to grown their numbers of needy children served through the program.

Our project will extend over a 4 month period, from January-April 2009. Our kickoff will be on February 4th, when the coordinator for the Table and our local State Farm Representative will visit our classroom to talk about the goals for the project. Throughout February and March, there will be a number of in class lessons on nutrition, as well as project days, where students will break into teams to work on budgeting, shopping, distribution, and outreach. All students will rotate, insuring that each student has an opportunity to participate in all groups. During this time, parents will help transport students, with parent permission, to grocery stores for purchasing, and to The Table for a weekend distribution sort night.

In April, our class will work on letters to local officials and community members, create posters, and work to extend this project even further. Our goal is to spread awareness about the non-profit organization we are working for on a long term basis.

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