Feed Our Rural Kids started in the Northland Pines School District with a basic, but important, goal: keep children from going hungry.
Over the years, it’s expanded to different programs like JumpStart that provides more fruits and vegetables for those in the WIC program or providing meals for children on school breaks and weekends.
It recently installed children’s pantries in several schools in the Northland Pines and Phelps School Districts.
Now it’s expanding outside the schools to help support families that don’t live as close to the schools.
“The objective of our Children’s Pantry Program is to bring food in two ways closer the children. One, geographically. Two, to make the times of the day that the food is available broader than when our food pantries our open,” said Perry Pokrandt, President of FORK.
FORK will be installing children’s pantries in the Plum Lake Library in Sayner and the Conover Town Hall.
Food will be available to anyone who needs it. There are no restrictions.
Pokrandt says it’s not meant to replace food pantries, just a little something to help people get by until they can get to one.
“The very concept of is that you take what you need and then on the opposite, give what you can in terms of encouraging community members to be part of this solution with us,” he said.
The opening dates for the new children’s pantries have not been set.
