School Pantries
Food pantries are vital for the City School District of Albany as they help address food insecurity among students and their families. By providing access to nutritious meals and essential supplies, they ensure that students can focus on their education without the distraction of hunger.
AFE has created and enhanced food pantries at the Albany International Center, Hackett, Myers, and North Albany Middle Schools, and the Thomas O’Brien Academy of Science and Technology (TOAST). All AFE food pantries have refrigerators and freezers to provide access to fresh produce, dairy, and meat, along with funding to purchase culturally specific products that are important to their school populations from our local ethnic grocery stores.
AFE’s school pantries were generously funded by grants from the Seymour Fox Memorial Foundation, Regeneron, and the Albany County Legislature, and operate in partnership with the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern NY.
AFE was recently awarded a $225,000 APRA grant from Albany Country and to expand the school food pantry program in the City School District, pilot and evaluate other school-based hunger alleviation methods, and convene a gathering of school staff and organizations working on school-based hunger programs in Albany County and the Capital Region.
Feed and Read Program
When students are food insecure, they arrive at school on Monday morning hungry, unable to concentrate, taking food from waste baskets, and anxiously awaiting lunch.
AFE began to address food insecurity on a District-wide basis in 2013 with a weekend food backpack program developed with HATAS (Homeless and Travelers Aid Society) and the Regional Food Bank. In 2019, Grassroot Givers joined the partnership to provide an age-appropriate book with each backpack. AFE has been instrumental in shepherding the program — we serve as a critical partner in convening meetings and work groups, provide annual funding, solicit grants, and publicly promote the program. Volunteers from the community are invited to sign up for backpack stuffing shifts. This year, the Feed and Read Program will serve more than 300 students throughout the Albany City School District, providing them with a bag of nutritious food and a new book each Friday.
AFE has also expanded our Food Insecurity Programming to include summer weekend food bags and school food pantries – more information coming soon!
How to Sponsor the Feed and Read Program
We need your help to sustain this important program! It costs more than $300/year – or $25/month – to provide a student with a backpack for an entire school year. The backpacks include bread, cereal, fresh produce, and coupons for eggs and milk – along with an age-appropriate book each week to help students build literacy habits at home.
Hunger Doesn’t Take a Summer Vacation
Most students look forward to summer vacation. But for food-insecure students, summer can be a stressful time without the familiar structure of school meals. And summer meal programs also don’t provide food on weekends.
That’s where AFE’s “Hunger Doesn’t Take a Summer Vacation” program steps in. For eight weeks, we partner with the Albany Schools, the Regional Food Bank, Bimbo Bakeries, and many community partners and volunteers to provide 485 students with bags full of food each weekend, including fresh produce and milk and egg cards from Stewart’s Shops. Are you or your business interested in volunteering and/or supporting the Summer Food program? Email info@albanyfundforeducation.org for more information.