Filling the Gaps: How Educate Fairfax’s Food for All Program Helps FCPS Students Thrive
- alexis10428
- 6 days ago
- 7 min read
The Growing Need in Fairfax County
Did you know one in three Fairfax County Public Schools students receives free or reduced-price meals while at school?
Across FCPS’ 199 schools, 51 are designated as Title I schools, or schools where a significant percentage of the student body qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
This means 69,000 students struggle to have enough food to eat. Thanks to federal funding, these students are guaranteed meals at school, but many still struggle with food security at home on weekends.
The statistics and reality of the situation have caused several organizations to step in to fill those food gaps. From local food pantries and churches providing weekend meals to elementary school students, to Food for Neighbors, which provides the same service to middle and high school students, Fairfax County is stepping up to help its most vulnerable population.
However, the need continues to grow, and more families are finding they need extra help.
Educate Fairfax Steps In
After speaking with several organizations about the ever-growing need, Educate Fairfax decided to step in to help fill some of that need.
Liz Brocato, program specialist for Educate Fairfax, said the need keeps growing and requires more people stepping in.
Liz gave an example of how the need has grown by pointing out the situation of just one Title I school. According to Liz, the school gives out 70 weekend snack packs within the first week of the month, leaving very few kits for the remaining weeks.
“The [other organizations] can’t fill all the need, so we fill the gaps. That is our goal, not to take away from what they are doing but to help support,” she said.
Launching the Food for All Program
This need led them to implement a program called Food for All this past spring, with a goal to work in tandem with other organizations to fill any gaps at Title I schools, the FCPS Welcome Centers, and the new homeless shelter in Fair Oaks that houses several FCPS students.
Doing what Educate Fairfax does best, energizing the community to invest in the students of FCPS to make a positive difference, they reached out to several community partners and small businesses to hold quarterly food drives.
The food gathered at those drives is used to create weekend snack packs to supplement 46 elementary schools, four middle schools, two high schools, the Welcome Centers, and the homeless shelter.
Each snack pack is a gallon-sized Ziplock bag with about 10 easy-to-prepare and eat food items.
Liz said in addition to the Title I schools, one high school that was not designated as a Title I school reached out on their own and asked for help with weekend food for its students.
Community Partners Step Up
Jarrett Brumett, owner of Nova Strong Personal Training and Fitness, said they were more than happy to hold a food drive to help the students in the community.
Jarrett, a small business owner in Fairfax County for the past 10 years, said it’s important for businesses to be plugged into the community and roll up your sleeves and help out where needed.
“A large part of our company culture is altruism, and the idea of strength being a multi-faceted concept. Strong people are going to help others become strong, and we try to do either a fundraiser event or drive every quarter,” he said. “It’s important and I like to participate in events that help people locally.”
He said it was simple. They put a box in the lobby of their gym with a sign and a list of food items they downloaded from Educate Fairfax’s website and within a three-week span, emptied it three times.
“When I went to the store, every time I was like, ‘cool, I'm just going to buy a couple more things, like granola bars or meal replacement bars for the kids and bring it with me to work,’” he said.
United Bank Joins the Effort
United Bank’s Woodburn branch, a bank with longtime ties to Educate Fairfax, has held an ongoing food drive since learning about the launch of the program in February.
“United has a long history of giving back to the communities we serve, and children and education are two of our priority impact areas, so this campaign really aligned with our values. When Dr. Henry mentioned Fairfax County Public School families in our community who are struggling to put nutritious meals on the table – especially during the summer when kids are out of school, and how this campaign would help give them access to the food items that they need, we decided to volunteer as a donation center,” Suzan Ansary, United Bank Woodburn Branch Manager, said.
Suzan added that the food drive has been important not only to the branch employees but to its members.
“This food drive has helped to strengthen our culture of care and support for the communities we serve. Many of us have kids who are currently or have previously attended Fairfax County Public Schools, so this campaign is also personal to us,” she said.
Suzan said the box they put in their lobby would fill so often, they decided to turn in their donations monthly so they could collect more the following month.
Packing Events Bring the Community Together
In the months since the Food for All campaign was launched, several local businesses and organizations like Cornerstones and Mercedes-Benz and Porsche in Tysons Corner held food drives. Other businesses like Wegmans, and Cigna Healthcare donated money to purchase food. And thanks to the Giant Food ‘Feeding School Kids’ Round-Up campaign, Educate Fairfax was able to purchase additional food items for the snack packs. Several teachers, students, and FCPS employees have either donated their time, talent, or treasure to the cause.
Feb. 28 marked the first packing event, which was organized by Herndon High School teacher Gabe Segal. Gabe and a crew of 10 student volunteers stayed after school on a Friday to help pack over 300 snack packs.
Fighting Student Hunger One Snack Pack at a Time
Gabe, an advocate for student food insecurity, first got involved in bringing awareness to the issue seven years ago after observing his own students struggle with it in every school level in FCPS. So much so that he always had snacks on hand in his classroom for anyone who was hungry.
He said over the years, as he’s fought to bring awareness to the issue, he had learned that most people don’t realize that right here in Fairfax County children aren’t getting enough to eat.
“You can tell right away when kids come into class hungry. Their heads are down, they’ll say they are tired,” he said.
“If you think of Maslow’s hierarchy, food is on the bottom. You need food to get your brain going. You cannot expect a child to give you their full attention and be cooperative when they are hungry. Their mind is elsewhere, they are thinking about food, not your Geometry class,” he said.
He said helping Educate Fairfax pack food for students was a no-brainer.
“My parents were educators in FCPS so I have a lot of respect for the county. In my mind we are the best of the best and I hold us to a higher standard. We are very strong and we should be the gold standard for education because we have the resources. And with that mindset I figured there had to be groups in the county that help students. I work with Dr. Henry and know Liz and they are both very passionate and when I learned what Educate Fairfax was doing we just naturally moved forward in that same direction,” he said.
He said his students had no problem staying after to help the cause.
“I know a lot of them from teaching them in middle school and I know their families and I’ve taught them to give back. So whenever I ask them to help, they are just all in,” he said.
Students Lead the Way
During the summer, another pack event was held where volunteers packed 500 snack packs in an hour.
West Potomac High School senior and Educate Fairfax summer intern Abby Leach helped organize and get the word out about the summer pack.
“We had a whole packing event that I got the other interns to come to, and we went down the line, kind of like a conveyor belt, and packed a bunch of the bags. Then we delivered them to a school and a homeless shelter,” she said, adding that the packs were immediately given out to students participating in the summer school program.
She said seeing the snack packs go full circle, from food drives to packing to giving them out and immediately being used was eye-opening.
“It was just kind of crazy because Fairfax County is so large, and I know that there's a lot of different incomes, but I didn't realize how other schools differed to my school in students’ needs and access. I already knew it was going to help a lot, but when we got there and I saw how much was needed, I really saw the full picture. It was kind of insane. I wasn’t able to envision it,” she said.
After each packing event, Liz said they reach out to the schools they support to see how many kits they need.
“I think each school would take all of the kits because the need is so great, but we generally spread them out,” she said.
How to Get Involved
Educate Fairfax is currently holding quarterly food drives and packing events, with a goal to do more as the need arises.
Anyone can hold a food drive for Educate Fairfax, whether it be a school club, neighborhood, sports team, local business, family, or individual. Students can also earn service hours by participating.
If you are interested in holding a food drive, everything you need is right on the Educate Fairfax website, from instructions to downloadable flyers. We will even pick it up after.
Visit educatefairfax.org/our-focus for more information.
