All Ages Make a Difference with Food For Neighbors

During the Saturday, March 7, 2020 food collection and sorting event, Food For Neighbors received a record 11,000+ pounds of food to help students at twenty-one area middle and high schools. Food For Neighbors also discovered a recently inspired volunteer—eleven-year-old Jack Cochran, who began purchasing, sorting, and delivering food with the nonprofit this school year.

While sorting food at Herndon Middle School on Saturday, Jack, a fifth grader at Ideaventions Academy for Math and Science, shared about his interest in helping others. Instead of asking for presents for his birthday and Christmas, Jack requested money, so that he could donate it to a charity. He chose Food For Neighbors, which made quite an impression on him when he helped his mother, Jennifer, and sister, Julia, deliver food to the South Lakes High School pantry in the fall. Jack saved enough money to purchase an entire carful of food, which he donated to Food For Neighbors. His next goal is two carfuls!

Jack especially likes that Food For Neighbors is an all-volunteer charity, which means donations make the best impact on those in need. He also enjoys the hands-on volunteer opportunities, in which community members of all ages and abilities may participate.

As Jack said, “I find it fun to sort food, and it’s good to know it’s for a good cause.”

Karen and Mark Joseph founded Food For Neighbors to address teen hunger at schools where many students had few reliable food sources other than their weekday school breakfasts and lunches. While various programs had recently begun to address this concern at the elementary school level, they were too limited to address the large middle and high school populations.

In 2016, Food For Neighbors began filling this gap via its “Red Bag” program, which allows individuals to shop for nonperishable items at their convenience and to set them on their doorsteps for collection approximately five times per year. Volunteers organized by neighborhoods then collect the food and bring it to a central location, where it is sorted and then delivered to participating schools. At the schools, volunteers package the food, and social workers and parent liaisons distribute the packages to students on a weekly basis.

Food For Neighbors invites all community members to join Jack and other volunteers in making a difference. To make a donation or get involved in other ways, please visit https://www.foodforneighbors.org/get-involved/.