SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — A local nonprofit is feeding the hungry with compassion in their hearts and education on their minds.
Food For Kidz is a nonprofit that started in Minnesota.
The nonprofit has two branches, one in Spokane Valley and one in Minnesota.
Volunteers have a goal to bring awareness to child hunger, sending about 10 million meals across the world since 2003. The Spokane Valley Branch started just over a year ago.
Volunteers said they target kids on free and reduced lunch programs in the Inland Northwest, but they have also given to food banks and shelters in the area.
Locally, meals are packed at the nonprofit's facility, which runs out of Eastpoint Church in Spokane Valley. Volunteers form an assembly line and pack meals with the help of anywhere between 10 and 60 volunteers at a time.
Jim Dodd, the volunteer director with Food For Kidz, said their efforts are very needed in our community.
"Roughly about 40,000 kids are on [a] free or reduced lunch program,"Dodd said.
"One of the schools that I chatted with, the principal up on the north side has 457 kids and 76 percent of those kids are on the free lunch program. If we can get more volunteers and we can keep going at 25 cents a meal, then we can get the stuff to those kids and they can cook it and eat it on the weekends when they aren't in school and also we are trying to push real heavy now for when summer comes," he continued.
At the Spokane Valley facility, volunteers package beans and rice, cinnamon oatmeal, and mac and cheese.
The nonprofit also works closely with HRC ministries get these meals to schools and in the backpacks of kids.
If you are interested in donating or volunteering, you can visit the nonprofit's website.