By Toni Depew
After a one-year hiatus due to construction, funding and available space The CAMP & LMAS are happy to announce there will once again be apples & bananas available to all students at TAS throughout the school day. The Counseling And Medical Place (The CAMP) provides medical and mental health services to students at TAS and noticed that the needs of students were often more than the counseling and medical appointments offered during the school day. Some basic needs were not being met.
What started as a food pantry project turned into something much bigger and ran for 2 years through a grant from No Kid Hungry. We initially thought it would be helpful to have easy to make meals for students to take home if their families were struggling or parents were working in the evening and unable to cook or get to the grocery store. We quickly realized that students were coming in more often looking for something to eat during the day, not a meal to cook at home.
To ensure that what we were offering was not only filling the bellies of growing adolescents, but also providing nutrition without preparation, the idea of simple fruits came about. Fruit is available daily to all students. There are bins available for classrooms to have on hand, or students can stop in for a single piece of fruit when they are hungry.
The program has been a huge hit, teachers have noticed students are more focused in class when they aren’t hungry, students were happy to have a healthy snack and maybe try something new that isn’t always available at home.
When the health center moved last fall, there was no available funding for fruit, and the new location did not have the space to make the program functional. The CAMP has since applied and received grants for not only the fruit itself, but also for construction to the health center to make space for the refrigerator and prep area needed for the Fruit Program, as well as The Teen Closet & Laundry Station, which is used by students daily.
The funding for The Fruit Program should be enough to get us through May or June, and fundraising will need to be done to continue the program in coming years.
Both Mac’s Market & Rahilly’s IGA are assisting The CAMP with discounts on fruit and free delivery weekly and both plan to offer round up or donations at the register in the near future. In the meantime, donations can be made to The CAMP Attn: Fruit Program; 700 Newberry Avenue; Newberry, MI 49868 or at either store attn: Fruit Program at TAS.
For more information about services available at The CAMP or the fruit program, call 906-293-3226 x 1427.
