Northridge High School opens food pantry. (Photo: KUTV)
(KUTV) Another NFL season has kicked off so schools, churches and businesses have begun planning for the 2018 Souper Bowl of Caring. At Northridge High School, they never stopped. The Knights raised over $4,200 in cash and food during the 2017 Souper Bowl of Caring and they are using it as seed money to open a pantry in the school. It will help feed the growing number of hungry students.
“Hunger is everywhere”, Davis District Superintendent Reid Newey says. “We have about 25% of our students who encounter some type of hunger in their live every day.”
“I can't believe I'm surrounded by so many of my peers that do not have food.” Northridge senior student body leader Emily Roylance confides.
But she is and that is not breaking news on campus.
“We know hunger on campus is a really big problem,” Northridge senior student body officer McKenna Hyer observed. “I see lots of kids at lunch all the time that are sitting there with no lunch and go hungry.
Northridge teacher Dave Seiter acknowledges he has come in on Monday morning and seen students who haven’t eaten all weekend. Did the Northridge students see similar problems when they were younger?
“I've seen it in junior high,” Roylance confirms. “It wrenches your heart quite a bit.”
Less than a year ago, Northridge officials decided to open a pantry. Holding up a piece of paper, Northridge Principal Brian Hunt recalled, “This agenda is from December 12, 2016”.
Two months later the Knights collected 1,000 food items and $3,200 during the Souper Bowl of Caring. Did the Souper Bowl of caring resonate a little bit then because so many people are hungry and so many people know someone is hungry?
“Yes,” Hyer stated. “I think all of us have a story of a friend or neighbor or someone that's just hungry and when you see that it makes you want to help more and I think so many people are helping because of that.”
They started providing hungry students with bags of food for the weekend.
“We served in a month and a half probably 400” students, Seiter says.
Reassessing the need they partnered with Chevron, the Davis Chamber of Commerce, the Bountiful Food Pantry and the Davis Education Foundation to reach a bigger goal and open an on-campus pantry.
As he opened the pantry Hunt stated, “Today Northridge is becoming a better school because of the Knights Pride Food Pantry.”
“It grew and grew so this little project thing we had in December of 2016 is not so little anymore,” Seiter added
The people who came together to open this pantry believe it can be replicated. Bountiful Pantry Executive Director Lorna Koci “hopes to have at least 4 more pantries up and running by a year from now.”
Chevron’s Mikal Ann Byrd believes, “this is not an issue that's going to be resolved by one person or even one organization. It's going to take all of us.”
The next Souper Bowl of Caring might help move the pantry into a new space.
“This very small room will be expanded maybe into a portable building across the street,” Seiter says. With “something like that we can help more people because frankly, nobody should go hungry and especially, kids.”
Northridge High School is just south of Hill Air Force base so many of the students that will be aided are the kids of base employees who are struggling to make ends meet. The pantry at Northridge is also expected to serve two nearby schools, Lincoln Elementary and North Layton Jr High.
