Food pantry helps hungry students at Fallbrook Street School

FALLBROOK – Over 125 families at Fallbrook Street School have more nutritious food to eat lately thanks to a collective effort between school staff and the Fallbrook Food Pantry.

Recognizing the need for healthy food to sustain many students over weekends, Fallbrook Food Pantry is collaborating with Fallbrook Street School in order to ensure that students have food to eat at home.

“Eighty-six percent of our students are economically disadvantaged <and receive free or reduced lunch at school>,” said assistant principal Stephenie Martinez. While school staff can be confident students are eating nutritious meals that are provided at school, there has been a gap over the weekend until recently.

Fallbrook Street School came to the Fallbrook Food Pantry’s attention thanks to volunteer Barbara McLean, who volunteers at both FSS and the Fallbrook Food Pantry.

“Barbara recognized that despite school lunches, students are still hungry,” said Martinez, “and she immediately saw the connection.”

Currently, the assistance from the food pantry is temporary and will continue through the end of May. It is the hope that Fallbrook Street School will become a recipient of The Food4Kids Backpack Program through the San Diego Food Bank.

The program is for children attending the San Diego Public School system who are on the free or reduced lunch program. Similar to the effort being piloted with the local Fallbrook Food Pantry, Food4Kids provides a bag of nutritious food items to help sustain students over a weekend.

There is a wait list for Food4Kids, however, and Fallbrook Street School is 16th in line for services.

In the meantime, students who have been identified as chronically hungry are appreciative of the local effort being made. One school volunteer who helped disburse food items into backpacks recently said, “The kids were so gracious. They didn’t care that their backpacks were so heavy; they felt like they were helping out their families. It was really great.”