ANGELS WITH FOOD BAGS FOR AREA SCHOOL KIDS

Vacaville members of End 68 Hours of Hunger give away food to elementary students during weekends

They are angels with bags of food for area elementary students who may be food-insecure during weekends when local schools are not offering or distributing free lunches and breakfasts.

As co- director of the Vacaville chapter of End 68 Hours of Hunger — a reference to the weekend time period that gives the group its name — Tinamarie DeStefano of Vacaville said the mission is to give away food to eat, Friday night to Sunday night, to young students in four Solano County school districts, making a difference at more than a dozen schools in all.

The food — nonperishable pantry foods, peanut butter and jelly, granola bars, fruit cups and the like — helps the students, many of whom are from poor families or at-risk, “to focus,” improve test scores,

and lessen behavioral problems, such as Attention Deficit Disorder, DeStefano said.

A mother of two in Vacaville schools and owner of Tails of the City Dog Salon on Davis Street, she said the food distribution is made possible by a nine-member board and “various volunteers at each school” who believe in the nationwide private, nonprofit weekend program, started in New Hampshire in 2011 as a way to end childhood hunger in America, one child at a time, as described in the 2014 book “End 68 Hours of Hunger” by Claire Bloom (not the English actress with the same name).

Like other chapters, Vacaville’s, started in 2013 by Cindy Christison, a Genentech employee, is funded “purely by donations and grants,” many of them from the county’s best- k now n f irms, including NorthBay Healthcare and Kaiser Permanente.

DeStefano said “in the COVID era,” the group’s food bags are taken to the participating schools, then distributed from there.

In Vacaville Unified, the schools are Sierra Vista, Padan, Ma rk ham, Hemlock a nd

Fairmont; in Travis Unified, Foxboro, Cambridge (both in Vacaville), and Vanden High; in Fairfield- Suisun Unified, Cleo Gordon, Fair v iew, and Dover; and Kairos Public School Vacaville Academy, an independent charter that is, essentially, its own school district.

At the Vacaville group’s Facebook page, members urge the public to let them

know if any children in area schools want to participate in our program and to send a message to the web page.

“It’s so quick and easy, they could be getting a bag of food by this Friday,” according to the post’s wording.

Additionally, for employees at a school not currently enrolled in the program and want to do so, likewise, send a message to the web page.

PHOTOS BY JOEL ROSENBAUM — THE REPORTER Volunteer Ben Quitugua of Vacaville loads shelf-stable food items into a bag Thursday at the Vacaville Storehouse Food Bank. The food distribution drive is organized by End 68 Hours of Hunger, a private not-for-profit effort to combat the 68 hours between Friday lunch and Monday breakfast to provide meals to elementary school children in 10 schools in the Vacaville and Fairfield-Suisun Unified School Districts that may go without food.

End 68 Hours of Hunger volunteers Cathy Van Vessem (left) and Carole Davis organize food items before they are bagged up and distributed to schools in Vacaville, Fairfield, and Suisun City Thursday at the Vacaville Storehouse Food Bank.