SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A new weekend food program is helping families in San Diego's Southcrest neighborhood bridge the gap between school meals.
The Neighborhood House Association's Head Start program will provide bags of groceries to families at pickup on Friday, thanks to a grant from the San Diego Foundation. The bags contain essentials like bread, oatmeal, pasta, peanut butter, and jelly – items that can make the difference between a fed family and empty stomachs over the weekend.
Many children in the Southcrest Neighborhood House Head Start program receive healthy meals throughout the week at school, but for weekends, that isn’t always the case.
“We know that many times the children go home on Friday, as they're being picked up from preschool and may not have another nutritious meal until Monday when they come back,” said Lisa Gillespie, Vice President of Administration for the Head Start program at Neighborhood House.
One mom ABC 10News spoke to is already planning weekend recipes.
“I was just automatically thinking about like what I can make with it, you know, seeing the PB&J,” said Stefani Wiley, whose daughter is in the Head Start program there. “My daughter's a huge PB&J fan, so. A full loaf of bread that gets you more than a weekend's worth, right? If we plan it out right. And the recipe card, I think even that makes a huge deal, you know, people see the contents, but they're like, ok, cool, like what can I do with this?”
The Neighborhood House Association says they have about 1200 families they serve in Southcrest.
And the recent pause on SNAP benefits led to an immediate need for food.
“I was my mother's caregiver for a while, and I'm on Snap myself, so, you know, making meals at home and stretching it and making sure every dollar counts for the most part,” said Wiley. “When the whole government shutdown thing happened, we just had to make it work.”
NHA says they are hoping this new program will fill in the gaps and keep kids full.
“This is what it's about, right? NHA is community, and when we think about community, this is exactly what it is,” said Wiley.
If you or someone you know might be interested in the program, click here.
