I LOVE Food for Free!  Why?  They are a great group of people doing worthwhile work rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste and getting it to people who need it.  But really why I love them is that they have made it so incredibly easy for me to access their services.  Last year when I first started working on ways to address the hunger problem at PHA, I sent a quick email to Food for Free.  Almost immediately I got a response.  They were happy to help with weekly donations of produce. Their only challenge was adding another delivery stop to their schedule.  When I said I could take that challenge off their hands and pick up the donated produce, we were set to go.  No stacks of forms for me to fill out.  No official contract to sign.  I just had to show up at the agreed upon time and location with my car and load it with healthy produce to bring back to PHA.

So, when Food for Free notifies me of upcoming fundraising events, I make every effort to attend and to get others to join me. On Friday October 24, Food for Free held their annual Party Under the Harvest Moon.  It happened to be conveniently located on MIT campus, offered great food and drink, live music, fun conversation, and of course the fundraising silent auction options. (A friend of mine, Diane, came within seconds of winning the weekend in Vermont. Too bad!)  And FFF raised $60,000 in this one evening!  They certainly know how to throw a good party, and make money while doing so.

Today I had the appointment to meet with MIT’s Community Service Fund.  PHA Thrive is a recipient of CSF’s most recent grant cycle, and as a recipient, I needed to go and speak with them to hear more about next steps.  As you might expect, next steps are rather routine – where to send the check, how to account for the way in which the money gets spent, how to think about and plan for a final report, etc.  But two great non-routine things happened while I was there.

The first great thing was to hear that the Board, that makes the decisions as to which proposals get funded and which ones do not, apparently unanimously supported our proposal!  Very cool, very exciting and very validating of what we’ve been thinking all along.  Children in the Boston/Cambridge/Somerville area schools should not be struggling with hunger while trying to learn.  Hearing this in the meeting made me go back and review the note I received along with the news that we had received their grant.

The second great thing that happened was as I was leaving, members of the board were arriving for a meeting.  I had an opportunity to speak with one of the board members, someone I’ve know for some time but did not know was on the CSF board.  She expressed personally great enthusiasm  and support for the work that we are doing, and invited me to give a quick introduction to another board member whom I’d never met (and I must admit I gave a pretty good elevator pitch).

And so I walked out as though on air, knowing that a check will be showing up at the PHA Foundation within a week, and we’ve engaged a few more minds and hearts in our drive toward a hunger free PHA.

Prospect Hill Academy (PHA) was established in 1996.  As a K-12 college preparatory school, over 95% of PHA graduates matriculate to four year colleges.  PHA is ranked among the top 2% of all US high schools by US News and World Report, and among the top 25% of all Massachusetts districts by the Department of Education.

The Early Childhood Campus (grades K-3) serves a very diverse population.  85% of the students are non-white – 58% black or African American, 14% Hispanic/Latino, 6% Asian, 1% American Indian or Alaska Native, 1% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Island, and 5% multi-racial.  52% list a language other than English as their primary/native language.  This diversity of ethnicity, culture, language, and perspective creates a richness in our community that would be hard to find anywhere else.

With this richness comes challenges.  Currently 71% of our students qualify for free or reduced school lunch.  Free breakfast is offered to all students who arrive early.  Many students arrive at school too late to receive the free breakfast served in the cafeteria.  And many arrive without a morning snack packed in their backpacks.  In the last year, the school nurse estimates that she had 500 visits for head or stomach aches that were resolved by her providing food.

It is time to pay attention to this reality.   As a community, we can ensure that the children in our school no longer have to struggle to learn on an empty stomach.