‘Love Feeds’ Seeks To Address Hunger Among School-Age Children

Hunger is a real and present issue in the lives of many children in Dillon County, and a new ministry called “Love Feeds” hopes to address this problem.
Love Feeds is a non-profit organization that strives to provide weekend meals to children in Dillon District Four schools identified by their teachers and guidance counselors. This ministry will provide bags of food to school age children each week during the school year to assist with their meals over the weekend.
Statistics show that one in five children eat their last meal of the day at school.
Hunger has devastating effects on children including physical and mental development, behavioral challenges, and often leads to actions detrimental to their future.
Love Feeds wants all children to have the same opportunity for educational success, therefore, a good beginning is minimizing the destructive effects of hunger.
The desire of Love Feeds is to encourage children through these bags addressing not only their hunger, but sending a message that there are so many in their community who want the very best for them.
It is estimated that there are 400 food insecure children in Dillon County. In August 2017 Love Feeds began serving 200 students with the goal of covering all recommended students in our county over the following year – approximately 400 children.
On Tuesday, volunteers were busy packing bags to be distributed to the students.
There are a number of ways that one can participate in this local mission opportunity.
One way to help is through sponsoring one or more children. It costs $110 per child per school year to provide four meals and two snacks. Donations of any amount will be accepted from individuals, civic groups, churches, etc. and may be mailed to Love Feeds, P.O. Box 1920, Dillon, S.C. 29536. Checks should be made payable to Love Feeds. One hundred percent of this money will go directly toward buying the food items. Their financial goal is $44,000 which would allow them to cover the entire county.
Another opportunity to help is to sponsor a food drive. Love Feeds will provide a list of needed food items for the drive, which can be held at any time during the year. For a list of items, please e-mail lovefeedssc@gmail.com.
For those who would like to be hands-on with the ministry, there are opportunities to get involved with monthly packing days at the Wellness Center and taking bags to the schools every Thursday. Bag packing days will be held on 9/12/2017, 10/10/2017, 11/14/2017, 12/12/2017, 1/6/2018, 2/13/2018, 3/13/2018, 4/10/2018, and 5/8/2018 at the City of Dillon Wellness Center multi-purpose room from 4:30-6:30 p.m.
Other opportunities include joining the board, writing grants, fundraising, and spreading the word about the ministry.
For more information, e-mail lovefeedssc@ gmail.com.

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Photos by Betsy Finklea/The Dillon Herald
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