Slug-A-Bug employees again loaded food into backpacks to feed needy Brevard County school children. It’s the fourth time employees of the pest-control company spent time volunteering at the Children’s Hunger Project.
The volunteers gathered March 30 at Riverside Presbyterian Church, 3400 North Atlantic Avenue in Cocoa Beach.
Stu Wisell, Fleet Manager and Facility Manager for Slug-A-Bug, coordinated the event.
“I fell in love with this program because it’s so needful and I always like to help kids,” Wisell said. “There are children in this community who don’t even know where they’re going to get their next meal.”
In Brevard County, as many as 50 percent of schoolchildren receive reduced-cost or free meals while at school. But those meals don’t continue through the weekend, so there’s a chance the recipients could go hungry on those days. The Children’s Hunger Project works to cover that critical span.
Under the program, students take home the backpacks every Friday that contain non-perishable food items: ravioli, chicken and vegetables, milk, juice boxes, breakfast bars, cereal and more. Keeping up children’s nutritional levels over the weekends helps them arrive for class on Monday ready to engage with their work.
Volunteers meet en masse to load the backpacks in a methodical, highly coordinated process. Teachers give the needy students backpacks at the end of the school week without drawing attention to them, helping preserve their dignity.
“I don’t want to see any kid go hungry,” Wisell said. “Let’s help the kids and have a good time doing it.”