To close the weekend hunger gap, Cape Kid Meals was established in 2014 and began delivering prepackaged bags of food for food-insecure students to elementary schools, where the food was discreetly placed into those students’ backpacks before weekend dismissal. This year, the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of public schools threatened the program. However, a communitywide volunteer effort has kept it going.
“Although many things had to stop or slow down in order to readjust how to work through COVID-19, the Cape Kid Meals program didn’t stop, and it actually increased its service to the students in the program,” said Drawde M. Geishecker, secretary for Falmouth Volunteers in Public Schools.
Ms. Geishecker said when schools were closed, Tammy Leone, executive director of Cape Kid Meals, worked with VIPS to increase the amount of food packed each week to cover a week’s worth of food and healthy snacks. They, along with Sharon Reid, who works in the office of the superintendent of schools, worked all spring and summer to pick up food at various locations and find volunteers to pack it into bags for delivery to students’ homes .
When the Reverend Nell Fields of the Waquoit Congregational Church learned of the need for volunteer drivers, she called her clergy group.
