Service Project: Create Food4Thought Packs for Students in Need

View all active volunteer opportunities

Did you know? In wealthy Fairfax County, more than 30 percent of Fairfax County Public School children qualify for free or reduced-price meals — about one quarter of the school population.

Our Food4Thought Program partners with social workers and parent volunteers at select Fairfax County Public Schools. We enable them to send home food for the weekend in the backpacks of students who receive food assistance at school during the week and who may potentially go without food over the weekend.

This project requires that you, your family, or the organization you represent provide the food that goes into the packs. Britepaths and the schools that need assistance are not able to provide the food for your group to put in the packs. If your organization does not have the funds to purchase these items, a great solution is to ask volunteers who are participating to donate the food items, and plan for the number of packs you can create based on the number of donations you receive from group members. This way, everyone can truly share in the effort to help others, and no one is asked to spend too much money.

Community members can help us assist children in our partner schools in two ways:

  1. Donate Funds/Food: Click Here to Support our Food4Thought Partner Schools by donating funds that we will pass on to them.
  2. Create and Donate Packs: Purchase or collect the necessary food and assemble Food4Thought packs for students. If your organization is interested in donating food and assembling Food4Thought packs, here is how to get started.

Get Started

  1. Contact the School you would like to donate food packs to and see what their current needs are: CLICK HERE for a list of our Partner Schools and Contact Information.
  2. Volunteer and Donation Report: Please plan to track your donation and fill out this form (MS WORD) (PDF) and email to us so Britepaths can obtain volunteer hours and donation value. Britepaths will provide a thank you to use for tax purposes.
  3. Volunteer Project Details and Suggestions: Click Here for a PDF that offers details and suggestions for organizing your volunteer project, foods to use, etc.

Questions? If you have questions, contact Brenda Hernandez at info@britepaths.org or 703.273.8829.