Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino (FARSB) announced it will begin providing a free farmer’s style monthly Kid’s Market (KM) starting Wednesday, March 27, 2019 at Norco-Corona Unified School District’s Parkridge Elementary School at 750 Corona Ave., in Corona.
FARSB and local leaders will kick-off the new program with a ribbon cutting ceremony, open to community members with proper identification, at the school starting at 10:15 a.m. The ceremony will be immediately followed by a food distribution where each child will take home an average of 10-15 pounds of nutrient-rich product, including fresh produce.
Each KM provides fresh fruits and vegetables supplemented with other healthy shelf stable foods to at-risk children and their families who might not otherwise be able to afford such nutritious foods. Students receive a bag filled with locally grown produce and other food products once per month on a day that school is in session for the academic school year.
Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino has collaborated with school administrative staff and teachers to promote the upcoming distribution to children and their parents and assist support the school as they recruit and manage volunteers (often school staff, older students and family members of students).
“There is great news,” said FARSB Director of Philanthropy Lori Butler. “One in five children is food insecure in the Inland Empire, whereas, just last year that figure was one in four children at risk of going hungry every day. These Kid’s Markets are designed to impact our communities and see that more children and families are being fed that might otherwise fall through the cracks.”
An additional Kid’s Market was opened by FARSB last week at E. Neal Roberts Elementary School in San Bernardino.
“While tens of thousands of families, including those served by FARSB’s more than 400 community partners in the Inland Empire, are receiving meals through our regular distribution programs, many of the poorest and hungriest children slip through the cracks. The KM program targets children by working at public schools where we find the highest percentage of children receiving free/reduced-price meals during the school week,” said Vanessa Mercado, Director of Programs at FARSB.
“By focusing our attention on how access to healthy foods affects educational outcomes, we are creating a holistic approach in supporting our community’s kids. Hunger causes a myriad of problems for students like missing class, inhibited cognitive and developmental growth and even poor academic performance. The Kid’s Market is a program that addresses these issues and removes one of the main hurdles to academic success for our Inland Empire kids, regular access to nutritional food,” added Mercado.
To RSVP for the ribbon cutting or for more information please contact Vanesa Mercado: vmercado@feedingamericaie.org.
About Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino
Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino began in 1980 as Survive Food Bank in response to the increasing concern about the dual problems of hunger and food waste in the Inland Empire. Today, FARSB is the primary source of food for over 400 local nonprofit organizations, distributing over 2 million pounds of food monthly to emergency food pantries, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, high-need elementary schools, halfway houses, senior centers, residential treatment centers, shelters for the abused, after school programs and group homes. More than 100,000 men, women and children, rely on the food bank’s distribution center each month to make ends meet.
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