Central Dallas Ministries has enjoyed a great partnership with PepsiCo's "Food for Good" initiative for a second summer. Last year we partnered in a mobile lunch delivery effort with PepsiCo. This summer we rolled out a fully developed mobile delivery strategy in Dallas, while PepsiCo replicated the pilot program in Chicago with Catholic Charities as a partner.
The whole deal is way beyond cool and exciting!
Here's the report as we close in on the last three weeks of the joint effort that linked CDM's AmeriCorps team, PepsiCo and the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Illinois Department of Agriculture and the U. S. Department of Agriculture.
• The summer feeding program created 100 summer jobs and has now served more than 200,000 meals in Dallas, Texas across 10 routes with 3 weeks to go!
• We kicked off a mobile summer feeding program in Chicago on July 12 that has served more than 10,000 meals across 2 routes.
• We have 6 farm stands up and running in Dallas that, in just a few weeks, have profitably provided more than 20,000 servings of fruits & vegetables and valuable business skills to 30+ volunteers.
• The students at Paul Quinn College here in Dallas continue to run a fully operational urban farm, including harvesting and selling more than 100 pounds (!) of fruits & vegetables last week.
More details to come. We're making very significant progress!
Do you have to get permission from parents to take over their responsibility? If someone came along with a truck to feed my child I would be livid.
ReplyDeleteEvery parent is informed, just as in the school lunch program. Every meal is counted. Every child signed in. In addition, we have wholesome actitivites that are healthy, educational and focused on leadership development and fun. I wonder if your quick draw judgement here might come from the fact that you've never been in such a situation of poverty as these families.
ReplyDeleteAnnonymous 12:01 - I don't think you would be livid if you didn't have the resources to feed your children - I may be wrong, but I hear something in your response that implies people give up that responsibility willingly and easily, and I don't think that is true.
ReplyDeleteA.Park