This is your sign to pause a few minutes and help a child in need with a few clicks.
As the holidays quickly approach, so does our children’s school winter break. If you are very busy planning trips, parties, playdates, gifts for family and teachers, gatherings, or any fun activities for the season, you are tremendously blessed!
While school winter break means fun times with your loved ones, for many families, it can be an uncertain couple of weeks. And this is because one in five children in America live in households without consistent access to adequate food, according to the School Nutrition Association. This means that every Monday morning these students are hungry, waiting for their school breakfast after a long weekend or holiday without enough to eat.
In Miami-Dade, the child food insecurity rate is 13.7% higher than the statewide average (13.2%) and nationwide (13.5%), according to Miami Dade Matters–a web‐based intelligence and information platform that provides health and quality of life indicators for the South Florida region. These percentages speak to the number of children who depend on food provided at their schools’ cafeteria.
How can you and I help?
Since these are such busy times, Miami Mom Collective wants to make it easier for all moms to extend a helping hand and bless a local child facing food insecurity before Christmas. This is why we have partnered again with Branches to bring back the Holiday Snack Pack Project.
By donating any item on this list, Branches will put together snack packs to give to children facing food insecurity during school breaks in the communities they serve in Miami.
Participating is so easy! Just click on this link to see the snack and food options, purchase whatever God puts in your heart, and Amazon will ship it directly to a Branches location. It’s that easy!!
We encourage you to be a part of Miami Mom Collective’s and Branches’ Holiday Snack Pack Project by donating snacks or non-perishables on the list and sharing this link with family and friends. This project will run until December 20th.
Easy ways to involve your children
Parents can help cultivate compassion and generosity in their children’s hearts. The Holiday Snack Pack Project is a beautiful opportunity to do so. Here are some easy ways to involve your children right away:
- Talk to them about the reality of food-insecure children in our own city. Explain that some boys and girls depend only on the cafeteria food they get from school, so while some children are happy about vacation from school, others go hungry. This is key to raising awareness in their hearts and reminding them that there are tangible needs that kids experience, not too far away from our home.
- Invite them to be part of the solution and spread hope by participating with you in the Holiday Snack Pack Project. Have them click on the list, scroll through it, and choose items to donate.
- Explain what Branches will do with the donated snacks and foods. Show them the pictures above, so they can see a tangible example of the snack packs that children who are food insecure will receive right before school winter break.
- Encourage them to be thankful for their own food at home, and pray for these children and families in need as they receive their snack packs. Pray that these packs may satisfy their hunger. Pray that God’s grace and the hope of His salvation may reach them and satisfy their spiritual and emotional hunger.
Opportunities to volunteer with Branches this season
This month, the organization’s locations are turned into Under the Tree Toy Shops, where parents with limited resources can experience the gift of giving by buying new toys for their children at 90% off. Parents enjoy holiday music and treats as they shop for their children and then have each present wrapped for them by Branches’ volunteers and staff.
If you would like to serve in one of the Under the Tree Toy Shops, click here. You can choose to serve with your children if they are 13 years old or older.
