SALT LAKE CITY — When the Mobile Food Pantry program was suspended last month due to the pandemic, the Utah Food Bank turned to Granite Education Foundation for assistance to distribute within the Granite School District community, according to a news release Friday.
Where nearly 65 percent of the district – 41,783 students – were food insecure before the pandemic, it became imperative to make sure food donations continued to flow into the communities.
To help in these efforts, Rocky Mountain Power employees pitched in to make food deliveries to Granite schools, kits normally delivered by the Mobile Food Bank. Each week volunteers have been loading boxes of meals into their trunks and truck-beds and making no-contact deliveries to local schools.
Earlier this month, Rocky Mountain Power Foundation, the charitable arm of Rocky Mountain Power also contributed $100,000 to the Utah Food Bank, which manages the Mobile Food Pantry program.
“Those families and students who are food insecure are growing at an alarming rate,” said Brent Severe, CEO of Granite Education Foundation. “We could not offer the meal kits that are being handed out at our schools without the help of volunteers. Our Donation and Distribution Center is large enough to receive large pallets of food from partnering agencies like the LDS Church, Utah Food Bank, and others. From mid-March through today, we have delivered 123,443 meals, that’s an average of 3,527 meals a day to help mitigate the needs of families.”
Granite Education Foundation, is also currently engaged in efforts with local restaurants to provide additional assistance. Through these partnerships they are able to keep employees engaged, provide nutritionally balanced, culturally diverse, and affordable fresh meals as additional nourishment to highly impacted communities.
The organization is seeking funding to support the new restaurant initiative to meet demand. For more information or to make a donation click here or call 385-646-KIDS (5437).
“We are committed to doing all we can to support our communities during this time in propping up those organizations focused on helping others,” said Gary Hoogeveen, Rocky Mountain Power president and CEO. “We are proud to play a part in helping these communities and encourage others to join us.”