ROSENBERG, Texas – A Houston area organization that provides hundreds of meals for children in need over the summer is in dire need of help.
Lunches of Love, in Rosenberg, feeds about 1,800 children every single day during the entire summer and 2,500 kids every weekend during the school year at 38 Lamar Consolidated Schools.
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But now Lunches of Love is in danger of falling behind.KPRC 2’s Sofia Ojeda met with their program director, who showed us what it takes to make almost 2,000 sack lunches every single day.
Dozens of volunteers come in shifts throughout the week and help make peanut butter and jelly, ham and cheese, or turkey sandwiches.
In each sack there are vegetables and fruits, and dry snacks like cereal, chips, or granola bars.
Volunteers also spend time drawing on each bag with positive pictures and inspirational messages.
Lunches of Love is getting low on donations and the item it requires the most: water and juice boxes.
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Their water pallets are empty, and they only have about six cases of water left for eight more weeks of summer.
“Some of our families do not have running water in their house so this may be the only fresh water that they get each day, or juice that’s in their lunch may be the only drink they will get for the day. But juice is expensive for us to purchase for over 1800 a day that’s expensive and we rely totally on community donations for our juice and water. So what you see here is all the juice and water we have for the summer,” says Elizabeth Fairfield, Director of Lunches of Love.
“We started the summer out thinking about 1200 lunches a day. We quickly went to 1400, to 1600, 1700, we’re over 1800 right now. We expect to get to about 2000 for the summer,” adds Fairfield.
Lunches of Love was started by Fairfield’s sister 16 years ago after her sister passed away.
She made a promise to keep it going.
Fairfield says she’ll never turn a family away or turn any children away who show up hungry.
She says they will find a way to make it work.
“Our mission, our goal, our heart is that no child goes to bed hungry at night and we are here just to give them a simple sack lunch and a little bit of hope and a lot of love,” says Fairfield.
“We don’t receive any government funding and times are tough for everyone in the world today and so people aren’t able to donate as much as they have in the past and it’s hard for us to have enough money each day to make these lunches but if a child shows up at our door and says I’m hungry and I don’t have a lunch. We’re going to find a way to feed them,” adds Fairfield.
If you are interested in helping out, they need bottles of water and juice boxes.
You can also give monetary donations to help them buy food they need for the rest of the summer.
You can donate and learn more about Lunches of Love by visiting their website. Here is the Lunches of Love’s Amazon wish list. Be sure to also follow them on Instagram.
