Vienna Kids' Friendship Bracelet Sales Feed Families In Need

VIENNA, VA — When summer came around Vienna sisters Georgia and Josephine Grana had one big goal: do some good. Their mom Megan Grana gave them a list of charities they could help, and they chose a cause that has been feeding food insecure families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Real Food for Kids: Chefs Feeding Families is a joint initiative of DC area restaurants providing grab-and-go meals to families needing food amid school closures and job losses. Funding goes to food, supplies, and restaurant staff to prepare meals for families and to create employment opportunities within the restaurants. Meals from area restaurants are typically healthy options that could work in school settings. Since the initiative launched on March 17, the initiative has provided nearly 100,000 meals, including over 8,000 in Vienna alone.

With the girls' help, Real Food for Kids will help even more kids in the community. They've been making hundreds of friendship bracelets over the summer to sell and raise funds for the initiative.

"It helps kids in our community, kids in our schools," said fourth-grader Georgia Grana.

The goal had been to raise $500, but they ended up surpassing that goal. On Tuesday, they presented a $1,200 check to Real Food for Kids outside Cunningham Park Elementary School In return, they received their own Real Food for Kids aprons.

The Chefs Feeding Families initiative is part of the Real Food for Kids nonprofit, which aims to increase children's access to healthy, whole foods. According to Bonnie Moore, a founding board member of Real Food for Kids, donations support meal distributions, and Real Food for Kids is also looking to add an education component integrated with the return of classes. The meal distributions are aimed at supplementing programs such as the food distributions from local school districts.

"Schools have done an incredible job distributing food," she said. "We're trying to find those gap areas that exist."

Even in more affluent communities like Vienna, there can be areas of need. One of the areas identified for meal distributions is the Vienna Park apartment building.

According to Megan Grana, they estimated each bracelet selling for $5 would equate to a meal.

"That was a good motivator," she said.

The girls added local flair to the bracelets by offering colors of local schools such as Madison High School, Thoreau Middle School, Cunningham Park Elementary, Vienna Elementary, Louise Archer Elementary, and more. Once bracelets were ordered, the girls set up a booth at the end of the driveway for contactless pickup.

Now that school has started, the bracelet making is paused for now. But second-grader Josephine Grana said maybe next summer they'll do something else to help the community.

To donate or find out more, visit www.realfoodforkids.org/programs/chefs-feeding-families.

Patch has partnered with Feeding America to help raise awareness on behalf of the millions of Americans facing hunger. Feeding America, which supports 200 food banks across the country, estimates that in 2020, more than 54 million Americans will not have enough nutritious food to eat due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. This is a Patch social good project; Feeding America receives 100 percent of donations. Find out how you can donate in your community or find a food pantry near you.