TOLEDO, Ohio — Connecting Kids to Meals feeds northwest Ohio kids for free daily, and the organization has seen an increase in the price of food they purchase. But that hasn't stopped them from fulfilling their mission.
"There's 13 million kids in the United States that are food insecure," Operations Manager at Connecting Kids to Meals, Erin Paule said.
Food is a necessity for kids to be able to fuel their bodies and their minds. Connecting Kids to Meals says one out of every four of those kids in Lucas County don't get enough food.
"They get their meals at school and when they leave from school, tens of thousands of them don't get another meal until they come back to school the next day," President and CEO Wendi Huntley said.
Organization leaders said inflation has made this already-existing problem just that much worse.
"Unfortunately, it's just going to continue to get worse because families are going to have a harder time paying and covering these costs for fixing their cars, for fixing their heater, for buying dinner," Paule said. "Choices are going to have to be made in these families. And unfortunately, food is something that often times is the first thing that's cut."
The rising cost of groceries has also led to a rise in people seeking help from Connecting Kids to Meals.
"We have a lot of families that are just struggling in our community. That is just a pure fact," Huntley said. "In the last two to three weeks since the kids have gone back to school. We've already started to see increases in the number of kids visiting our sites."
More kids means more food the organization is providing on a daily basis. And things aren't getting any cheaper.
"We don't have that ability to raise prices for our menu. Our meals are free for the families that are coming and getting them, those kids that are getting those meals. It's no cost to any of them," Paule said.
But it still costs the organization and the price of the food they purchase has also gone up.
"We've seen increases of our canned fruit - 90 percent increase in the price of the canned fruit from pre-pandemic to now. And really is that supply and demand," Paule said.
But it's not just canned fruit, they say the price of hamburger buns has increased 61 percent since 2022. Grilled chicken is up 37 percent, Tostitos chips have had a 24 percent increase.
There's also the operating costs for Connecting Kids to meals.
"We have a pretty tight budget. We try to stick pretty close with our budget to make sure we don't ever go over and our overhead rate is very low," Paule said. "I believe it's about a four percent overhead rate. So really all that money coming in is going towards our operation, going towards the food that we're buying."
No matter the cost, meals are still delivered to the nearly 100 locations throughout our community.
If they're involved in sports, if they're at the libraries, if they're at the boys and girls clubs, we're there to partner with those program providers to make sure that kiddos get their third healthy meal, hot, healthy meal to fuel their bodies and their minds," Huntley said.
That's why your help during Hunger Action Month during September is so important.
"So your dollars that you're donating to Connecting Kids to Meals, to help us buy our food products," Huntley said. "It will go a lot further than if you were to actually hypothetically go to the and trying to buy those items. So your dollars are going to go further."
Right now, every dollar donated is matched from community sponsors.
If you can't donate but still want to help, you can volunteer. For more information, or to donate, click here.
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