St. Cloud group packs meals to ease student hunger

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (KMSP) - A group in St. Cloud, Minn. is making sure no student is left without a meal.

Every Friday, Sara Greenberg-Hassan and Suzanne Friedrich, along with a team of volunteers send 140 St. Cloud Area School District students home with gallon-sized bags filled with meals.

“And in that bag contains a breakfast, lunch and a snack for every day that school is out,” said Friedrich.

With children of their own in the district, these parents saw a need—and took action.

“A kid can learn better when they have a full belly,” said Greenberg-Hassan.

The group formed and is called Feeding Area Children Together or FACT. In just under two years, they’ve given out more than 20,000 free meals to hungry children.

“The school where we did the pilot last year, had tremendous academic success last year,” said Greenberg-Hassan. “And we can’t help but think that maybe a little portion of that is that kids were fed.”

Kate Flynn is the principal at Madison Elementary, where more than 70 percent of the student population receives free or reduced lunch.

“Nobody is out there to fix these problems, these problems are ours, this is our school, this is our community, these are our children,” said Flynn. “So to come together and be problem solvers isn’t that what the world should be?”

By working to ease hunger one student at a time, FACT is also hoping to serve as an example to others.

“We hope to be a model for other programs, and not to just be a model, but to teach other areas how to do it,” said Greenberg-Hassan.

“As a community, it’s our job to make sure that these kids are fed because it’s important to everyone,” said Friedrich. “All kids are our kids.”

FACT has a waiting list of more than 200 students and it's expected to grow. The group is solely dependent on donations. Organizers hope to raise enough money so that no child goes without a meal.