SAVANNAH, Ga. () — A local organization is fighting food insecurity in Chatham County by feeding thousands of children every week.

Over 35,000 students are in the Savannah-Chatham County Public School System, and a good chunk of those students are dealing with food insecurity.

“Over half of those qualify for free or reduced lunch,” Malena Stone, the founder of People of Action Caring (PACK) said. “So, what that means is on any given weekend, if a child goes home and they don’t have the school cafeteria open, they may not have enough food during the weekend. That starts to affect their performance on Monday.”
PACK sends out over 5,000 weekend meal bags each week through 42 Chatham County schools and community centers. That is more than 20,000 meals a month.

“It was shocking to me that we had so many children who needed it this year,” Stone said. “Those numbers have definitely risen just with the cost of everything going out so much.”
She said it’s about $200 to feed a child every Friday for the entire school year. With the demand increasing, New 3 is told it is becoming a challenge to continue to meet the needs of kids in the community.

“We have a great relationship with America’s Second Harvest, and they do a great job of getting grants and things that help discount the cost of food for us,” she explained. “But, we just really still need more financial support from the community to help feed the kids that we have on the waiting list.”

There are currently five schools on the wait list to receive weekend meal bags.

“Our goal over the next year is to try to take those off so that all of those children are receiving food to take home.”

If you would like to join their fight against food insecurity, visit their website for more information.