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Tiger Creek students, Helping Hands Ending Hunger report steady donations as school pantry serves nearly half the student body
Summary
Tiger Creek Elementary in Catoosa County is operating a Kids Helping Kids Pantry run with Helping Hands Ending Hunger; staff say volunteers and students have collected hundreds of milk cartons and provide weekly snack sacks to about 200 of the school's nearly 400 students.
Jamie Dills, assistant principal at Tiger Creek Elementary School in Catoosa County, said the school’s Kids Helping Kids Pantry has delivered hundreds of donated items to families in need.
“We're in the second week of our Kids Helping Kids Pantry through Helping Hands Ending Hunger. Our amazing students have collected over 350 cartons of milk,” Dills said, adding that Tiger Creek enrolls “almost 400 students” and that “each week we have nearly 200 students that receive snack sacks.”
The pantry distributes grocery bags of nutritious items to families to help students who lack food at home, Dills said. A resident who receives the bags said they provide a reliable weekend food source: “The grocery bags that our family gets from my school means that we always have something to eat on the weekends.”
A staff member representing Helping Hands Ending Hunger said the organization aims to reduce child hunger in the region, noting, “Over 1 in 5 children in Northwest Georgia struggle with food insecurity.” The representative described the group’s approach as providing “judgment free weekly access to nutritious food” and invited community partners to learn more via the group’s website.
Dills and the Helping Hands representative said donations and volunteer support have been central to the pantry’s early operations. Dills thanked donors and volunteers and emphasized the link between meeting students’ basic needs and their ability to focus at school: “We know that before a child can focus on learning, their basic needs have to be met.”
No formal actions, votes, or funding allocations were recorded in the transcript provided. The comments in the record were offered to describe the pantry’s operations and to solicit additional community support and partnerships.
The pantry serves students and families at Tiger Creek Elementary and is run in partnership with Helping Hands Ending Hunger; further details about the program, including ongoing donation needs and volunteering, were directed to the nonprofit’s website by the organization’s representative.
