May No Child Go Hungry campaign and the Fairbanks Community Food Bank

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (KTVF) - The month of May is the pivot from our chilly interior winter to our midnight sun summer, with various weather fluctuations in between. It is a time of change and a time of growth.

This month also represents the “May No Child Go Hungry” campaign. It is an annual KTVF, KXDF, and KFXF TV event benefiting the Fairbanks Community Food Bank by way of a food and cash donation drive that benefits the families and children of our community.

As we know, when school is out, it is also time of change for the children in our community. For many kids, it is a harder time for them to find food, to find the necessary meals they need. In fact, almost half of the people the Fairbanks Community Food Bank serves are children and this need increases over the summer months.

“The stories I’m hearing are that folks are doing everything they can to make ends meet,” says Anne Weaver, CEO of the Fairbanks Community Food Bank.

Weaver adds, “May No Child Go Hungry is one of my favorite events of the year. You’ve got children who are coming out of school. They’re getting ready to go into summer. That’s a real thing for nights and weekends often times there’s not enough food at that point. They don’t have the school lunches anymore. So “May No Child Go Hungry” literally focuses on getting the kids in the summer good food for themselves.”

The Fairbanks Community Food Bank has served over 600,000 meals in this current fiscal year with 40 percent of meals going to children.

“The way that we serve children most of the time is through our emergency food boxes. We’ll pack a three day supply of food: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and get it to them,” Weaver explains.

Although the need for the food banks assistance has seen a little moment of reprieve, Weaver mentions the numbers are starting to climb again. “We’re not at record numbers but we’re up, dancing, around record numbers right now. And we haven’t done that in the last few years.”

During each week this summer, the food bank aims to provide snack bags that they call “bone builders”

“The bags, they’re not going to last the whole week. But they’re going to last several days. So the snacks are sort of a supplemental addition. So for folks that are having an immediate need they can order the food boxes for kind of that longer term, get you through the week, something to put in your stomach. That’s our “bone builders” bag. We try to have one in North Pole and one in the Two Rivers area, you know, kind of the outlining, as well as in town. So chances are good there’s a distribution site near you,” explains the food bank CEO.

Weaver went on to praise the community for their continued support of the food bank. “It is an honor and a joy to be in this community. You know, people in Interior Alaska understand the value of helping a neighbor out. We get to see that here and we get to see it because this community knows that sharing matters.”

If you would like to make a donation to the “May No Child Go Hungry” campaign or drop off food, visit the May No Child Go Hungry web page, where you can make a virtual donation. You will also find a list of numerous sponsors who will gladly accept non-perishable food items and cash donations.

All food items and virtual and cash donations benefit the Fairbanks Community Food Bank, which in turn benefits our community and the children. Together we CAN make a difference.

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