Angels Community Group has received a $5000 boost to its School Lunch Program from Heritage Bank, which is enough to fund the program for the remainder of the year.
Working with different primary schools in the region, Angels’ team of volunteers prepares and delivers lunches to schools to help students who do not have access to lunches.
The service is free to students, parents and schools, although costs Angels Community Group around $170 per week for 155 school lunches with the program completely funded by donations.
Heritage Bundaberg Branch Manager Gina Waga said the team nominated Angels Community Group for a Heritage Bank sponsorship after hearing about the huge gap in donations needed to run the School Lunch Program.
“Over the past two years, Angels have been the local beneficiary of food donations collected from Heritage’s involvement with the annual Loads of Love Appeal,” she said.
“We’re thrilled to hear Angels will be able to support these students for the rest of the year without working out how they will afford for this to occur each week.”
The program provides more benefits than just food for the children as it had already resulted in increased engagement in the classroom and attendance at school.
“Once this program was up and running, teachers found students’ attendance increased and their grades improved as they had the capacity to be engaged in the classroom,” Ms Waga said.
The lunches are made every Wednesday during the school term and the sandwiches are then wrapped, frozen and packed into boxes with other snacks.
The schools pick the lunches up on Thursday each week and keep them in a freezer at the school for when a teacher notices a student who didn’t bring lunch to school.
The lunches include a sandwich, piece of fruit, two snacks, one homemade like a muffin and one pre-packaged.
The program is completely funded from donations, which can be made here.
Angel’s work has expanded to now service 12 different sectors with the main focus remaining on food insecurity.
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