News » Food For Thought
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Employee Spotlight: Bennet Bastian
Our program coordinator, Bennet Bastian, has had quite the array of experiences prior to joining the team at Food For Thought. A world traveler and volunteer with The Peace Corp, Bennet is fluent in four additional languages (German + 3 Ethiopian languages). His two years experience with the Peace Corp and as a public health contractor in Ethiopia lead him to Food For Thought when he returned to his home on the Emerald Coast.
During his time in Ethiopia, Bennet focused on public health, organizing volunteers and gardening, which has translated well to his role at Food For Thought as the program coordinator. He spends his time supporting the programs at each of the pantries (backpack, snack and garden), and definitely has become our go-to-guy for anything related to the Full Circle Garden, as he helps to keep them flourishing. In addition, Bennet is key in helping our program director facilitate the packing and delivery of the backpacks and snacks to each of the schools among the two counties FFT Serves.
Bennet enjoys the interaction he has with the volunteers that come to help Food For Thought, and was drawn to FFT outreach knowing that it is helping to benefit kids in our community that are in need. A native of Okaloosa County, Bennet said that if he were a kid today, he would likely have been a beneficiary of the FFT program as he was on the reduced meal program in school himself.
We appreciate all the hard work that Bennet does coordinating our backpack, snack and garden programs and are very thankful that he has a green thumb!
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2018/19 Year in Review!
Wow! Can you believe that the school year is almost over and summer is upon us?! We are so thankful for you and all of the Food For Thought Volunteers that have helped us achieve so much this past school year for the kids in our community. Without your help over the 2018/19 school year, we would not have been able to accomplish all of this!
We have continued gratitude for the help that each one of you have provided this school year! The hours (over 10k!) that you have spent at Food For Thought, makes you, our volunteers the backbone of our operation. The kids in our community would not be receiving the support through each of our programs without your help.
Looking ahead, we are gearing up for summer program service, as well as planning for the 2019/20 school year and are appreciative for all of those that will continue to help and serve Food For Thought!We are excited to see where this next year will take us and how we can better serve our community!
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Summer is Quickly Approaching! #youcanhelp
School is out this week for both Walton and Okaloosa counties, which means Summertime!! While most kids are excited to have the time off from school, there are many kids that have anxiety about being hungry over the school break.
The FFT Summer Program serves both Okaloosa and Walton Counties, providing 66K meals to 600 students over three months. The students involved in the summer program are able to pick up a month's worth of food, three times at our pick-up locations located within both counties.
By continuing to keep kids fed throughout the summer, it is empowering these students to stay nourished and not worry about where their next meal will come from while they are out of school. We are looking forward to be able to provide food to our students throughout the summer in hopes they will be able to enjoy their break as much as possible.
If you haven't already, will you consider to sponsor a family over the summer? There are three levels that you can donate today for our Summer Program:
- $35 - Feeds a student for a week
- $175 - Feeds a student for a month
- $375 - Feeds a student for the whole summer
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Thank you, Keller Williams!
On Thursday, May 9th, Keller Williams volunteered at the Santa Rosa Beach pantry as part of "Red Day," the real estate agency's day of service. Red Day stands for, "Renew, Energize, Donate, and Keller Williams celebrate's this day of service every year on the second Thursday in May.
This year, the local Keller Williams Agency was able to help Food For Thought pack snack bags, which are used for teachers to distribute to students if they come to school hungry. In addition, Keller Williams donated 1,600 food items and they helped our team to sort and stock these donations in the pantry.
We appreciate our local Keller Williams agency taking time from their day and using their Red Day to volunteer at Food For Thought!
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Did You Know? Rural Areas Have High Rates of Hunger
According to Feeding America, 86% of the communities in the United States that face hunger are rural*. Sometimes this seems counter intuitive since many of these rural areas are also farming communities that produce food for the rest of the country.Part of the reason rural communities have these higher hunger rates, is due to the difficulties living remotely can present. Rural areas have a higher likelihood to also be a food desert (an area which it is difficult to provide affordable or good-quality fresh food). Many rural areas also have a higher unemployment rate.Our community has a combination of populated and rural areas, both of which unfortunately have families that face hunger. Food for Thought is working to provide food to children not just in the more populated communities, but also within areas in our counties that have less options to receive food.
