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March 11th is the next Red Bag Food Collection Day!
FOOD FOR NEIGHBORS: Would you like to help students in our area receive the healthy food they need to succeed in school? CVHS partners with Food For Neighbors to stock the food pantry in our school and supply supplemental weekend food to our students who struggle with food insecurity outside of school hours.
FFN is looking for Red Bag Donors to donate food 5 times per school year, volunteers to drive and pickup the food and sorters to help organize and pack the food on event days.
It only takes a few minutes to sign up and can make a huge difference in the lives of local teens! Visit the website at www.foodforneighbors.org/get-involved to donate food and volunteer. Thanks for your support!
Centreville High School is proud to partner with Food For Neighbors (FFN) to help feed our local students who deal with food insecurity because even in a county as wealthy as Fairfax, one in four kids in our area are struggling with hunger. Studies show that when adolescents are fed positive outcomes include increased enrollment in challenging courses, higher graduation rate, improved mental and physical health, a decrease in disruptive behaviors and increased participation in after-school activities.
Food For Neighbors is a local organization addressing this problem by collecting food from our community via their Red Bag Program and donating directly to our local schools. The food is then distributed to the students every week through our food pantry.
“A child’s chance for a bright tomorrow starts with getting enough food to eat today” (Feeding America, 2021). We hope you will participate in the Red Bag food collection program. You can make a difference in a local student’s life by simply adding a few extra items to your shopping cart every 2 months.
Here’s how it works:
- Request a reusable Red Bag here and Food For Neighbors will drop it off at your house.
- Fill the Red Bag with food items that are listed on a tag on that bag.
- Respond to the FFN text survey regarding your availability to leave out a filled Red Bag.
- Put the Red Bag outside your front door in the morning on the next bag collection day, which is March 11. (Collection dates are also listed on the tag.) And don’t worry, they send reminders.
- Your Red Bag will be picked up from your house, the food sorted at a local school and delivered directly to our school food pantry.
With your help, even more kids can be fed. For more information on the Red Bag program click here. Check out what items FFN collects as they are targeted to ready-made, individually packaged food items that students and teens can eat on-the-go or with little preparation.
Other service opportunities include Driving to pick up filled Red Bags and Sorting the donated food during the Red Bag Day events. Visit the Get Involved page to find out more and to sign up to volunteer in these 2 very important roles. This is a meaningful way for students to get service hours, too.
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Ana Alvarez aaalvarez@fcps.edu (Family Liaison), Robin Thiel-Williamson rlwilliamson@fcps.edu (ESOL Department Chair), Carolina Diaz cbdiaz@fcps.edu (School Social Worker), or Karen Joseph Karen@foodforneighbors.org (FFN Executive Director).
Thanks for helping us provide food to students who need that extra support!
Chad Lehman
Principal
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