Jordan educators preparing to help the district’s homeless kids

WEST JORDAN — Hundreds of principals and school administrators in the Jordan School District are teaming up to help low-income and homeless children have something to eat.  They say too many kids are going hungry.

In the Jordan School District, officials estimate there are between 1600 and 2000 homeless children every year.  Many of those kids wouldn’t eat at all unless the school district provided the food.

“Kids are going home on weekends and the last meal they’ll have is school lunch and their next meal will be breakfast on Monday morning,” according to Jordan Education Foundation President Steven Hall.

During today’s service project at West Hills Middle School, administrators packed 1800 snack packs and 1800 weekend packs that are more substantial.

Hall says, “They include mac and cheese.  They’ll include cups of soup granola bars and breakfast drinks.”

Hall believes that if children are hungry, they have trouble learning.  He told the story of one student who needed to use the food from the Principal’s Pantry while she lived in a car with her mother for most of her senior year.

“Today, less than six months after graduation, she has her own car, she has a full-time job, she is productive and she has a place to live,” he says.

A lot of the money used to make these packs came from other students in the district.

“Many of our elementary schools, the little kids will go search for coins in between the cushions and will bring money into the schools.  They’ll raise several thousand,” Hall says.

Anyone interested in donating items or money to the Jordan Education Foundation can log on to the foundation’s website.