Gordon County Schools has exciting news to share with you! First, we would like to thank everyone who supports your school system as we seek to serve our community both in and out of the classroom. Community partnerships create opportunities to help the whole child, and we are looking to help our most disadvantaged students with socioeconomic supports.
We are starting an innovative, student-led program called Helping Hands Ending Hunger for the 2024-2025 school year. This food-safe program, authorized by the Georgia Department of Education and Department of Public Health, recovers unopened, uneaten prepackaged food and fruit from school breakfasts and lunches—perfectly good food that would have otherwise been thrown away. Supplemented with other nutritious food Helping Hands purchases from the Atlanta Community Food Bank or donated by the community, this food is stored and sent home with students who otherwise would not have food to eat over the weekends and during school breaks.
Our school system has needs for a program like Helping Hands to help prevent food waste and lessen the number of our students who are food insecure. Students worried about where their next meal will come from, or who lack nutritious meal choices, face poorer health, perform worse at school, and are at risk for other underlying social problems. This program allows us to address a critical need and hopefully improve their success and happiness at school. The students involved in this program learn lifelong lessons of empathy, compassion, kindness, and leadership as they work toward helping feed our community. Helping Hands has been operating at other schools throughout Georgia with great success, and we would like to see that improvement here at our school as well.
The 7 schools participating in this initiative (Belwood Elementary, Fairmount Elementary, Red Bud Elementary, Sonoraville Elementary, Sonoraville High School, Tolbert Elementary, and WL Swain Elementary) need specific supplies and donations for supplemental food. Our schools are asking that you help sponsor with either a monthly or one-time donation. You can do so by visiting our school website page and following the instructions there:
https://www.gcbe.org/o/gcs/page/helping-hands
Helping Hands Ending Hunger Inc. is a 501c3 charity; cash donations are tax deductible easily made to the school, you can utilize our PayPal service, or donate through the HHEH website (https://www.helpinghandsendinghunger.org/donate). Reference that the donation is for Gordon County Schools and 100% of the donation will be used for our program.
We know that it takes a community to raise a child; therefore, we would very much appreciate your support! Please share this with businesses and other potential sponsors, and call us at 706-629-7366 for more information about this innovative, important mission to feed our students in need.