Fastpacs delivers weekend food to students
Using food donated by community members, Frisco Fastpacs puts together hundreds of meals each week to help ensure children in the area have food to eat when school is not in session. Giving Tuesday is a day that non-profits and charities throughout the area use to raise awareness and funds.
January 8, 2016
Frisco Fastpacs wants no child in Frisco to go hungry even when they are away from school. Every week throughout the school year, pre-packed bags are sent to FISD schools that include 7 meals for each child in need to eat over the weekend at home.
“We do not know who these children are, it is all confidential,” Collections Coordinator Debbie Lowe said. “We get a number of students needing the Fastpacs from counselors. ”
Fastpacs delivers to children enrolled in the Free/Reduced Lunch Program in FISD. 12 percent of students in FISD qualify for the program, which is about 6,000 students. Many of them would go hungry without the program.
With shelves stocked with food, volunteers sort through it all to help prepare meal bags to be delivered to those in need.
“We feed approximately 700 kids each week,” Lowe said. “That would be about 2800 bags of food that goes out each one valued approximately at $4.50, so that’s about $12,500 worth of food and monetary donations that come in each month.”
Fastpacs began in 2013 serving 1 school and 32 students. But with Frisco’s rapid growth, Fastpacs has delivered more than 40,000 meals in a span of two years.
“I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve the students of FISD and so grateful to watch this community come together for a common cause,” Founder of Frisco Fastpacs Marian Schulze said. “Most people have been shocked to learn just how great the need in Frisco really is, myself included. But I continue to be amazed at how this community has responded to the need. Maya Angelou use to say ‘When you know better, you do better’ and I have found that to be 100 percent true of the people of Frisco.”
