36: the number of classes that will be taught this year in our Emeril Lagasse Foundation Full Circle Kitchen! These classes are part of our increased efforts of sustainability and provide invaluable life skills to the kids who participate. We gather in the kitchen with some of the most at-risk students in our area and teach them life skills. We cook together, eat together and clean up together. This program has impacted our volunteer kitchen instructors as much as it has the kids! How can you be a part of it? Ask us how at www.fftfl.org

And thank you to Emeril Lagasse for making this possible

The 2017-2018 year was incredible, and this year we are making strides to reach MORE children, serve MORE families, help even MORE. Find out more about our organization and the impact we made on the community last year in our Annual Report, and then Resolve to Help this year by getting involved, as a donor, a volunteer, a sponsor, or a community partner. We need YOU!

Our community has more children than ever before who are food insecure, meaning they don't have enough food at home. When school lets out for the weekends, some kids are counting the hours until school starts on Monday morning, since they know that breakfast and lunch will be provided free or reduced. Think about that for a moment. From Friday at lunch all the way to Monday at breakfast, some kids in YOUR community have nothing to eat. And how do you think a hungry child is going to perform in school? What chance does he really have for success, how can he really concentrate on his work if all he can think about is how hungry he is. That little hungry voice inside of him turns into a rumble, and schoolwork takes a backseat.

It is CRITICAL for children to have enough to eat, and at Food For Thought Outreach our mission is to eradicate food insecurity so that every. single. child. has the same chance at success in school, in the community, in life. 

You can be a part of this. In fact, we NEED YOU to be a part of this. It's more affordable than you think to help our cause, and 2019 is going to be our most ambitious year yet. Just look at the numbers and listen to that little voice inside your heart that says "You can help." No money or food to donate? We are always needing volunteers. There are ways to help our cause, and we truly hope you will consider finding one this year. We need you, and the children need you.

The bell is ringing, signaling the end of the school day, and the classroom is suddenly bustling with the excitement of the weekend. Your classmates are quickly stuffing their belongings into their backpacks, eager for the weekend to start, looking forward to plans with family, trips to the beach, Sunday dinners with grandparents. You pack your backpack slowly, pressing your textbook into your stomach to try to quiet the familiar growl of hunger that seems to last from Friday afternoon through Monday morning each week, even appearing now each evening at home during the weekdays. Your classmates hug or high-five each other, eager for fun plans ahead, happy to have a few days out of school, looking forward to every moment of freedom the weekend affords. But for you, the weekend is a time to be dreaded, the bell ringing on Friday signals to you only the fact that there is nothing for you to eat until you’re back at school on Monday for the free or reduced breakfast and lunch you know will be waiting. How are you going to make it until then? How can you concentrate on the big test happening Monday morning when you won’t have anything to eat on Saturday, or Sunday? How are you expected to hold to the same standards in school as your classmates when the same standards for basic needs just aren’t the same between your home and theirs? How are you supposed to have the same chance at success?
 
There are more than 3,300 children in your community that felt this way, each and every week. There are more than 3,300 children that, without Food for Thought, do not have enough to eat.  It’s hard to think that this is happening in a vacation destination, where beachfront mansions line the beautiful emerald waters here, where thousands of people spend their summer and spring breaks, where we eat dinners out at seafood restaurants on the sand. It’s hard to imagine that there are this many children that need our services, but what’s even harder to believe is that there are hundreds, maybe thousands more, that are waiting for their turn to join our program. This year, in Walton and Okaloosa counties, we delivered 46,000 backpacks, with 460,000 food items, and in an effort to continue expanding how we can help, we planted two gardens, offered 4 months of snack programs, and instructed 22 classes in our Emeril Lagasse Full Circle Kitchen. With your help, we are doing everything we can to change these kids’ lives, to offer them the chance at success that they deserve, to make sure that each and every child in our community has food to eat, to  create sustainability in our programs that will let us grow and one day say that no child in our community suffers from food insecurity.
 
This year, we’ll be delivering 72,000 backpacks with 720,000 food items to purchase and pack. There will be 5 more months of snack services, 36 more kitchen classes, and 2 more garden harvests and plantings.
We need you now, more than ever before.
 
No child should be without an equal chance for success, and that starts at the very foundation of our existence: food. No child should ever be hungry, and you can play a large part in helping us achieve that goal. Please join us in creating a stronger community, in fostering stronger, more confident, healthier children that have the strength of mind and body to conquer the world. Please, please consider our cause when making final gifts this year.

We need your support.

The little girl who lives next door, the boy who sits next to your son in class, the sisters who play soccer with your daughter, the teenager who delivers your newspaper. You would never imagine that they don't have enough to eat. But once you realize it, it's hard to imagine not doing something to help.

Thank you for your support. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.