EVERETT—Mukilteo School District students sitting on the Student Cabinet have taken measures into their own hands to spend their Spring Break tackling food insecurity in the region, through a food drive entitled “There’s Hope in Every Can.”
The Mukilteo Student Cabinet was launched three years ago and brings together student representatives from secondary schools (middle schools and high schools) to discuss issues within the school district and how to address them. Last year it was identified that food insecurity continued to be an issue, with approximately 50% of Mukilteo School District students on the free, or reduced, lunch program.
Each Mukilteo School District high school has a food pantry, and the district also has a Family Engagement Center that distributes clothes and food to families. The “There’s Hope in Every Can” project began with students stocking, and organizing, these food pantries. In doing this, many students realized there was a continued need for food, deciding to do a food drive and take it straight to the community.
Mukilteo School District Superintendent Dr. Allison Brynelson knew Vikki with Sound Credit Union, who was the former President of the Mukilteo Schools Foundation, and reached out for a partnership opportunity.
“This is the first time we’ve brought our food drive to our community and helped the community to help support the work,” said Mukilteo School District Superintendent Dr. Allison Brynelson. “Students are literally meeting people. At QFC you’ll see them talking to people and encouraging them to buy additional ethnic food items.”
The Student Cabinet broke off into three different teams, one that specializes in Sound Credit Union in South Everett, one that focuses on Sound Credit Union in Mukilteo, and the other who focuses on the QFC in Mukilteo.
Vikki Strand, Community Outreach for Sound Credit Union and member of the Mukilteo School Foundation Board, informed the Lynnwood Times that the credit union has four major focus areas and one of them is food insecurity, so it was a natural fit when the school district reached out for a partnership opportunity.
“We already do a lot for food insecurity, we do a lot in Snohomish County with Food Lifeline, partnering with the Aquasox and Silvertips so it just made sense to do it, plus we have two branches within the Mukilteo School District boundaries,” said Strand. “We’re just happy to be apart of this vision.”
Jill Faunce, Branch Manager of the Everett Sound Credit Union informed the Lynnwood Times the donation boxes have been extremely well received by the community, and the credit union has even had people stop by with “boxes of food,” with the sole purpose of donating.
“Food insecurity is extremely important to us and goes right along with Sound Credit Union’s guiding principles,” said Faunce. “Our branch is located in a very low income area so it’s very, very, important – not only to our members but to our community.”
Sound Credit Union will also be donating $250 towards the food drive, which will be up to the students to decide how to allocate to their cause.
Every so often Mukilteo School District students will pick up the donations from the two Credit Union locations and bring it to the Family Engagement Center. The goal is to have 1,000 food items by the end of the month. Food will then be packaged into meals, some will remain at the Family Engagement Center, and some will be used to supplement the food that goes home to kids on the weekends in K-8.
Mukilteo School District Junior Dan Clarin is part of the marketing team and helped get the word out via social media, promotional videos, and working with local news outlets, as well as putting up fliers to local libraries and businesses.
“The idea of the food drive was brought to us, but we are the ones putting in a lot of effort to it because we believe it to be a probable cause,” said Clarin. “During school everyone gets a lunch but if they’re not in school, where are they getting their food from? That’s the part that really motivated me to put a lot of effort into this.”
Lily Lewis and Joey Calbert, Mukilteo School District Juniors, helped figure out which food should be collected (being conscious of cultural cuisines and diets) as well as decorating the donation boxes.
“Some foods are best on the shelf but wouldn’t be grabbed so we had to figure out which foods would be eaten,” said Calbert. “The list that we made helped bring better foods and more culturally open foods.”
“Hygiene products were also important to include because a lot of people don’t think about them when they donate, like deodorant and clean stuff like Tide pods and detergent,” added Lewis. “When Joey and I were helping out at the food pantry we noticed how much had expired because the lack of resources and that opened our eyes a little bit about the types of food we collect.”
Those interested in donating to the “There’s Hope in Every Can” drive can bring donations to the South Credit Union Everett location, or the Mukilteo Sound Credit Union location any day through the month of April. The public can also bring donations to the Harbour Pointe QFC in Mukilteo on May 8 and 9.
The food items currently in need include apple sauce cups/fruit cups, soups/caned chicken, canned SPAM/canned tuna/small bags of rice, shelf-stable milk/fruit leather, cereal, canned veggies/canned fruit, tuna/hamburger helper, cup of noodles/jelly or jam, small bags of beans/mac and cheese, small jars of peanut butter, as well as hygiene products like bleach, tide PODS, small soaps, toothbrushes, deodorant, tampons, pads, shampoo/conditioner.
For those who choose to donate cash can visit the Sound Credit Unions in Everett or Mukilteo and donate into a specialized account.
The Mukilteo School District also partners with Point of Grace Church to provide ‘Packs for Kids’ on the weekends for children in kindergarten through 8th grade. Packs for Kids distributes about 30 bags of food a week and is always looking for more volunteers.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
