Grantham Academy NJHS Students Lend Helping Hand at Kids’ Meals

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Students prepare meals at Kids’ Meals.

After two weeks off for midwinter break, students are getting back to business. A group of students at Grantham Academy hit the ground running. The student members of the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) chapter at the campus took part in an activity to help others. Their generosity helped provide lunches to Houston area children.

According to the [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]Houston Food Bank, Texas has one of the highest rates of children who are food insecure. This means that they do not have consistent access to food.

In Southeast Texas, about 2,800 children are hungry on any given day. Of the 137,000 different people that receive Houston Food Bank help each week, 47% are children.

Sebrina Shields-Taylor and Jermel Viltz organized a community service project that targeted children. Shields-Taylor and Viltz, who both serve as advisors for the NJHS chapter at the campus, arranged to take the students to [icons icon_name=”icon-external-link” icon_size=”14px”]Kids’ Meals Inc. on Jan. 7.

Kids’ Meals is temporarily headquartered at the Houston Food Bank. Kids’ Meals is a nonprofit community-based organization. It serves healthy lunches to more than 1,700 hungry preschool-aged children living in poverty.

Throughout the year, Kids’ Meals provides and delivers nutritious meals Monday through Friday. The service is free of cost to families. It is a huge undertaking. The organization relies strictly on volunteers daily to help make 2,000 lunches for distribution. This involves making the sandwiches and packaging the meals.

The folks at Kids’ Meals appreciated the lending hand from the students. The Grantham group went above and beyond on their project. The group helped the folks at Kids’ Meals Inc. exceed the daily goal of meals. Through teamwork, the students helped put together 2,720 lunches during their community service time.

Tracy Jones (r) with student Stefani García (l).

The Grantham Academy students impressed Tracy Jones. She serves as the volunteer manager at Kids’ Meals.

“I really enjoyed having the Grantham Academy group volunteer with us,” said Jones. “They worked well and super fast too. I would love to have them come back to volunteer with us again.

“Everyone at Kids’ Meals appreciates the time and effort the group gave in service to the community.”

Afterward, the Grantham students felt a sense of accomplishment. Stefani García was among the students that took part in the community service project. García is president of the NJHS chapter at Grantham Academy.

” I loved how we all pulled together and worked as a team to get the job done,” said García.

Both Shields-Taylor and Viltz hoped the project taught students about the importance of volunteering.

“We wanted students to learn how important it is for them to take part in community activities,” said Shields-Taylor. “They need to know that they can make a difference in the life of another.”

Below are more images of the students at Kids’ Meals for their community service project.

Grantham Academy students work to package meals.

The NJHS chapter from Grantham Academy poses for a group picture.