Thanks to grants from United Way of Pueblo County, Inc. and Feeding America Strategic Partnership Investments program in conjunction with Procter & Gamble, we were able to launch a school-centered Mobile Food Pantry program at the high schools within Pueblo-D60 last month.

These Mobile Food Pantries will visit the high schools every month during the school year, providing nutritious food to those in need. The first two pantries at South and East High Schools served 325 students!

Students from each of the schools and the Nutrition Services Department are volunteering to make these pantries possible. Each distribution provides 3-4 produce items and a snack item for students and their family members.

Fresh apples were part of the school-centered Mobile Food Pantry distribution at South High School in September. Care and Share staff observed a young man around the age of 15 take his sack of apples that he had just received from the pantry and eat four of them, one right after the other, as fast as he could right down to the core. The staff member that observed the young man took an extra sack of apples over to him and asked him if apples were his favorite fruit. He replied to her, “Nah, I just haven’t had any for like a year!”