The Twinsburg City School District partners with The Emergency Assistance Center (TEAC) to facilitate our PAWS on Child Hunger Program.
PAWS provides a bag of nutritious snacks to school-aged, eligible children through grade 8 on Fridays of each week so they have something healthy to eat over the weekends. The food items are “kid-friendly” and nutritious and can be easily opened and prepared to be eaten by the child.
Typically, we distribute PAWS bags 4-5 times a month with a cost of nearly $1,000 per distribution or between $4,000 - $5,000 per month. Our PAWS on Child Hunger Program is funded 100% through donations from our generous community.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, the costs related to this important program have exceeded the donations brought in and the only reason our District has been able to sustain the program this long is due to the fact that the balance prior to 2018 had built up to a little more than $36,000.00.
Prior to 2020, our participation was lower and our food cost was lower with donations far exceeding our costs. Currently, our students’ need is greater than ever as demonstrated by the fact that participation is almost double what it was pre-pandemic.
Food costs have risen well over 20% just since the onset of COVID-19. In order to sustain our PAWS program, we are in desperate need of monetary donations. An additional $15,000.00 is needed to maintain the program through the end of the 2022/2023 school with the annual cost of the program at approximately $36,000.00.