photo by: Contributed

The Lawrence Rotary Club, the Central Rotary Club and the Jayhawk Rotary Club gathered at Maceli's on Wednesday, October 2, 2024 to collect snacks for elementary schools in the Lawrence school district.

To help alleviate students’ hunger during the school day and support teachers in providing snacks, local rotary clubs collected pre-packaged snacks for Lawrence school district students, and they intend to expand the service through a project grant for the second year in a row.

The three Lawrence Rotary clubs – including the Lawrence Rotary Club, the Central Rotary Club and the Jayhawk Rotary Club – gathered Wednesday night at Maceli’s to assemble hundreds of pre-packaged and boxed snacks into bins for each elementary school in the district with each school receiving two bins. The snacks range from cereal bars to whole grain granola bars, Goldfish crackers, Rice Krispies Treats, and Cheez-It crackers.

Jane Bateman, the Service Committee co-chair with the Lawrence Rotary Club, said that many teachers ask parents to bring in a box of snacks at the beginning of each month because the students need some nourishment throughout the day. However, not everybody can do that.

“(These collected snacks) get added to the snacks the other parents bring, so that nobody feels bad that (their) parents didn’t bring snacks,” Bateman told the Journal-World. “It’s all put together as kids need them and they are given out.”

photo by: Contributed

Over 50 people between the three rotary clubs in Lawrence came together on Wednesday, October 2, 2024.

Bateman said that in order to help their students during the school day, many teachers have purchased snacks from their own personal budgets.

“If kids are hungry, they can’t learn or focus well,” Bateman said. “They don’t retain information and have difficulty paying attention in class. We need to be able to give them snacks when they need it.”

Like last year, the Lawrence Rotary Club secured a district grant to provide $8,086.50 of additional funding for snacks through the rest of the school year. The Lawrence Rotary Club will seek cash donations to match the grant and provide funds to purchase appropriate snacks and get them to the remaining community schools. The snacks will be purchased through the Lawrence school district food services and follow the healthy snack guidelines to be bought at a reduced cost, according to the press release.

The rotary clubs will deliver snacks to all 21 Lawrence Public Schools and will reach over 10,000 students, which includes over 4,200 who qualify for free or reduced lunches. The additional items could include trail mix, saltine crackers, Capri Sun 100% juice packets, raisins, applesauce, graham crackers, whole grain snacks and mini Slim Jim meat sticks.

“I don’t think we can have the government or schools buying everything that we need,” Bateman said. “I think that we as a community need to come together and help out where it is needed.”

Those interested in donating to the Lawrence Rotary Club can contact Bateman at janerb@sunflower.com or send donations to Lawrence Rotary Club, P.O. Box 442162, Lawrence, KS 66044.