Breaking Down Barriers in Tennessee
Posted by Alice Pennington on Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Share Our Strength’s team is visiting summer meals sites we’ve funded throughout the country and interviewing community leaders and Share Our Strength’s partners who are feeding kids healthy meals while school is out. We hope you enjoy this series of posts from the road.
We recently visited Of One Accord Ministries, a small but powerful nonprofit, in Rogersville, Tennessee, that has knocked down one barrier after another to bring vital services to families living in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains in eastern Tennessee. Here is a look at the creativity and innovation that the organization demonstrates. We found them inspiring and think you will too.
Barrier 1: Kids in Rogersville aren’t getting the nutrition they need in the months when school is out. Barrier Broken: Of One Accord launches its own summer meals program.
Barrier 2: Transportation in rural Tennessee is a daily challenge for families. Gas is too expensive; distances are far. If a parent in the family is lucky enough to have a car and employment, kids are often left alone at home with no way of getting to a meals program.
Barrier Broken: Of One Accord obtains an old school bus and transforms it into “The Lunch Box,” a mobile cafeteria that takes meals directly to kids at parks, public pools, trailer home parks, and other community gathering centers.
Barrier 3: To obtain USDA reimbursement for summer meals, kids must receive and eat the meals in a “congregate setting.”
Barrier Broken: The Lunch Box has built in lunch booths where the kids can eat in community.
Barrier 4: Of One Accord gets calls from families in neighboring communities who beg for the bus to come to their areas.
Barrier Broken: Of One Accord finds funding from Share Our Strength and other local partners to secure a second bus and launch a second route.
July 6, 2010 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: grantees, No Kid Hungry, summer meals
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