CALVARY CREEKSIDE
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Mission Statement
Open Hands Whatcom exists to eliminate hunger among school children in Whatcom County. By partnering with several local school districts, Open Hands provides non-perishable and easy to prepare foods on the weekends and school holidays to sustain students and promote health, wellness and better academic performance.
About This Cause
Under our normal annual operations Open Hands, a DBA of Calvary Creekside, is dedicated to providing meals on weekends and holidays to children who utilize the free/reduced meal programs within their school district. Our desire is that kids start their school week able and ready to engage and learn. The number of children growing up in homes with an insufficient amount of food to nourish their bodies and minds is staggering, as upwards to 13 million kids in North America lack food to promote health, growth, and development. There is tremendous amount of research available showing the link between hunger and poor academic performance. Without access to basic needs like food children will struggle to reach their full academic potential that would otherwise allow them to compete for higher learning opportunities. As adults, they are ill equipped to contend in a competitive job market, and therefore they themselves end up struggling to make ends meet and adequately support their own families. And so the cycle continues. Of the schools Open Hands currently serves those receiving the free or reduced meal program is significant. The percentage of kids receiving free or reduced meals are as follows: Ferndale School District 47.3%, Lynden School District 38%, Nooksack Elementary 48.9%, Everson Elementary 62.1%, and Sumas Elementary 63.6%. With such a high percentage of kids in these parts of our county, we need to ensure they have enough sustenance to carry them through the weekend in order to be ready and able to engage in learning and growing. Our commitment, as well as those that partner with us, is to eliminate weekend hunger in order to promote health and wellness, and future success to the children within our communities. In 2017 our church became aware of the need to provide food on the weekends to elementary age children. At that time we started serving 30 Isom Elementary students and 150 Everson Elementary students weekend food bags. Weekend meal bags include 2 breakfast items and 3 lunch/dinner meals and 2 small snacks. The cost per bag is $3.00. All food items are nonperishable and require little preparation for younger children. Donations, both monetary and food items, have been received primarily through word of mouth and via our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/OpenHandsCVC/ or on our website: https://www.openhandswhatcom.com For the 2019/2020 year we have had the privilege and resources to provide weekend and holiday (larger size) food bags for 10 schools (prior to COVID-19) in the Nooksack Valley School District, Ferndale School District and Lynden School District (Everson, Nooksack, Sumas, Custer, Cascadia, Skyline, Eagleridge, Central, North Bellingham Learning Center and Isom elementary schools, as well a s several middle and high schools since COVID-19). This equates to our volunteers packing and preparing over 1,200 bags every week. Our volunteers deliver to their assigned schools on Friday afternoon to send off with the kids as they head home for the weekend. We have received amazing support in the community, but the need continues to grow. We were asked to step in and help provide extra food to students during COVID-19, which we are doing, but as you can imagine, this is requiring substantial additional resources! Our current numbers of students has already rose to over 1200 during this COVID-19 pandemic and our numbers continue to rise. We also have been asked by two additional school districts to add their 500+ students in need, which would bring us to a total of 1,800+ students for the coming school year! We do not want to have to turn any of these school requests to feed their students away. These wonderful schools are dedicated in seeing the youth in their communities thrive and have all the available opportunities that all children deserve. The commitment is great and the reward priceless. But food costs money. With a total of over 1,200 children receiving food at $3.00 a bag it equates to $3,600 a week and $106,000 annual budget for the current school year since the increased need from COVID-19 pandemic. With the potential addition of two more school districts for the upcoming 2020/2021 academic year we are looking at adding 500 students raising our annual cost of food to around $140,000+. 100% of all our donations go to purchasing food and essential operating costs. All labor is donated and we welcome any who want to come volunteer with us. Since our beginning in 2017, we have received monetary and in-kind donations from others in the community who have chose to generously partner with us in this great need and we ask that you will choose to join us as well! The goal of Open Hands is to provide food to school aged children in Whatcom County that are in need of food over the weekend and on holidays. For the 2019/2020 school year Open Hands has the privilege to feed 800 children weekly prior to COVID-19 and now is serving over 1200 children weekly! For the 2020/2021 school year we would like to be able to feed the 1,800 children weekly as requested by their schools. We humbly request that you partner with Open Hands to ensure the children in Whatcom County have access to one of life’s vital and basic needs. Please read this recommendation letter from the Principals at some of the schools we serve: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Qss6mBx4Zr-zKIgSUjoUmPDAnTSwdlft Please check out this local news article about us: https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/local/article240094178.html