Did you know that over 60% of students in our valley struggle to find access to reliable meals outside of the school day? It’s true. We know that this impacts students in real ways…lack of focus, less energy, and sometimes even behavior issues can crop up when students don’t have access to proper nutrition.

To help provide some relief, Thrive Chelan Valley launched a weekend meal program called Food2Schools in 2013 which is designed to supply food insecure youth with evening and weekend meals and support their nourishment in addition to school breakfast and lunches. Since that time, it is estimated that over 20,000 meals have been served to hungry Chelan and Manson students. 

Programs like this exist because of powerful partnerships. In addition to our partnerships with local school districts to deploy these resources directly to students, we have also partnered with Second Harvest (Spokane) to ensure we have the food we need to keep local bellies full. Each month, Second Harvest delivers the food we order and from there, our staff and volunteers distribute it to local schools. 

This program has grown over the years as more students are made aware of the resources available. To give a snapshot of our growth…in 2019, a total of 347 bags were served to food insecure youth in the Lake Chelan valley. In 2020, that number grew to 6,316 and in 2021, over 6,800 bags were deployed. We’re projecting that by the end of 2022, close to 7,000 bags will be provided to Chelan & Manson students. We are thankful for the opportunity to make a real difference when it comes to childhood hunger.