Team Spotlight: Food for Thought

Meet the Food for Thought Team: Project Manager, Tim Curtin and Project Innovators, Emily Malkin, Keith LeGrone (not pictured), Rachel Pittenger, Veronika Stoilova, Jennifer Isherwood

This semester they have been helping Food for Thought move into their new centralized distribution site. The team is helping them develop a distribution strategy and design the space. 

In addition to creating new infrastructure, the team is helping develop a dynamic inventory model and feedback surveys for the community volunteer stakeholders.  This will allow Food for Thought to efficiently use its new resources and gather ongoing feedback and input from its stakeholders. (see some photographs from their site visit). 

Food for Thought is a community backpack program that provides easy-to-prepare shelf-stable weekend meals to food-insecure school children throughout Salisbury and Rowan County where nearly 1 in 4 children lives in poverty. Its mission is to improve our community by creating a coalition of organizations, such as churches, businesses, civic organizations and foundations, working together to feed hungry children.

Because so many food-insecure children rely on the school lunch program for nutritious meals, weekends can be times of great stress.  For this reason, Food for Thought provides healthy, shelf-stable meals to food-insecure children on weekends and some holidays. Its long-term goal is to expand the program in order to provide meals to all eligible children in every interested school by creating alliances within the community.

Kaitlin Carr
DISI Co-president