It's our annual Principal Pantry Sort & Shop Week. ALL 68 of the schools in our district have a Principal's Pantry in their building that students cans go to anytime to get food. Food for that day, food for the weekend, snacks, etc.
Principal Pantries were started by the foundation several years ago as schools recognized that some students did not have access to food outside of the school day. Over the years, the needs has grown, and due to the generous support of our community, There is now a Principal's Pantry in all 68 of our schools, with a liaison that communicates regularly with the foundation on needs and supplies.
While all principal's pantries are stocked with food, many also have hygiene items such as soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, as well as school supplies, backpacks, clothes, shoes, socks, underwear, blankets, toys, stuffed animals, and the list goes on and on.
Due to a generous donation to the foundation a few years ago, each of our high school also have at least one set of washers/dryers for student use, anytime the building is unlocked, which for high schools is pretty much morning to night. We have also started receiving a lot of new & gently used prom dresses the past few years, and have created a system to keep those organized by sized and housed in a location that students have access to those. I was out at the school that keeps all those dresses last week and there are racks and racks of them I believe well over 200 in varying sizes and styles. Just last month. a local dry cleaner offered to clean those dresses after each use. I'm not sure I can adequately explain the support and generosity this community provides to our schools. We can't all do everything, but what I have seen is people finding one small thing they CAN do and then doing it.
I did not intend to write so much, but I think I am a little passionate about this subject.
Back to our Fall Sort Week.
We broke down 11 pallets of donations from Costco. and multiple pallets of supplies community members had collected and donated from their recent September 11th Day of Service activities. The green house over at South Valley School was literally packed full of food and supplies.
First task, get them all sorted by product, then the SHOPPING begins,
Each school liaison or administrator had already completed their shopping list based on the items available this year, and now it's time to start shopping...one school at a time.
One side note, and this is an important one for me - ORGANIZATION
Though the foundation board members are just volunteers, the school liaisons and so many involved in these projects are part of the district and they are absolutely phenomenal!!!
Hilda, Randy, Carmen, Richard, everyone plays a part in making this all come together and come together so smoothly. Each schools order is printed in an easy to read format. Schools are colored coded by Elementary, Middle , or High school.
Day 1 everything got sorted by product and placed on the garden shelves in the order they are found on the order forms. and that is KEY in making this process run so well
DAY 2 Shop for 34 of the schools and organize their orders alphabetically by school name. So in the pictur3e above you have Heartlands order all together and ready to go.
DAY 3 Each of those 34 schools had signed up for a time slot to come pick up their orders from the greenhouse. They needed to bring a truck or large SUV to get everything back to their school, and sometimes it even too 2 trips. Here's how we prepped for those pick ups:
Started the day by pulling the first 2 orders and placing then on flat bed carts and pulling them out to the parking area. When school reps pulled up, they could usually help us load the order into their trucks and off they went. Then we hurried and filed the flat beds with the next 2 school orders, took them out to the parking area, helped load when they arrived, repeat. :) All day long
DAY 4 Shop for the other 34 schools, label by school, piece of cake.
Day 5 Repeat day 3; Pick up and load day.
I didn't get many pics but he's a quick glimpse into the pick up & load process
There is so much that I enjoy about working with the foundation, but this is definitely one aspect that I really love. It always always comes back to the goodness of people and the strong community we have and continue to build here in the Jordan School District.
