By: Julie H. Kirchner, Technical/Grants Writer, Powerhouse Planning

Have you ever had to think about whether or not you would have food to eat for the weekend? Ten years ago, three forward-thinking gentlemen—Bob Barnes, JY Clerc, and Sam Jordan—perceptively formed a nonprofit organization to help fight childhood hunger and malnutrition in Brevard County, Florida. Since then, The Children’s Hunger Project has served thousands of elementary school children who are at risk of hunger and malnutrition by providing meals to last them through the weekend until they return to school on Monday morning.

According to The Children’s Hunger Project website, the number of children in Brevard County in the free and reduced-price meal program exceeds 50%. Some elementary schools have 80% or more of their kids on the free and reduced-price meal program, with many at risk of childhood hunger and malnutrition. As a determinant of hunger risk and poverty in a geographic area, the availability of the free and reduced-price meal program in public schools has been recognized as a key indicator. For children at risk of childhood hunger and malnutrition, the risk doesn’t stop with the end of the school week. These kids are also hungry on the weekends.

Keith Gee, who has served as executive director of The Children’s Hunger Project since 2016, explains, “The kids we serve are elementary school children who are eligible for the National Free Lunch Program. Here in Brevard that means that they get breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday when they attend school. The problem is that lunch on Friday is oftentimes their last nutritious meal until they return to school on Monday morning. That is 68 hours without proper nutrition! We deliver a package of kid-friendly food to the schools and the teachers can put the package in the kids’ backpacks before they go home on Friday. This ensures that these kids return to school on Mondays ready to learn and be successful.”

On their website, The Children’s Hunger Project describes how everything is designed with the child in mind: “Each week on Friday, The Children’s Hunger Project, Inc. helps as many elementary school children as possible have food to carry home for the weekend in their backpack. This kid-friendly food is lightweight and easy for kids to handle—no cooking is required. Even if the power is out the kids can still pull the top off the can and eat Beanie Weenies. On Monday, the kids return to school but with a better and healthier foundation for learning. Our goal is to ensure elementary school children, at least on weekends, will have basic nutrition.” The Children’s Hunger Project measures success in positive results in children, including improved attendance, better test scores, improved reading skills, positive behavior, and improved health.

With such a powerful mission and purpose spurring the organization on, we can imagine that it feels good to go to work every day for The Children’s Hunger Project (TCHP). We asked Executive Director Keith Gee what he enjoys most about his work with TCHP. He says, “I love helping people. I have been involved with nonprofit management and fundraising for over 30 years (my entire career). I love the fact that I know each and every day my efforts are going to help people in need. I love the fact that TCHP is solely focused on Brevard County. I love the people I work with. All of the volunteers and staff are so passionate about our mission. It is truly inspiring being around them and watching them work. I also love the amount of support we receive from Brevard County residents. We have wonderful volunteers, consistent donors, and supporters who make our organization so successful.”

It’s easy to feel hugely drawn to their mission of feeding local hungry children, and that’s exactly how Powerhouse’s President Jessica Bertsch and Executive Assistant Jennifer Kirkpatrick felt about The Children’s Hunger Project after attending one of their events. Following the event, Jessica and Jennifer met with TCHP’s leadership team, identified their greatest and most immediate needs, and moved forward, as they would with any other contract, except this contract was pro bono, meaning it had an amount due of “$0.00” and Jess paid her freelance team members from Powerhouse’s “Share the Goodness” fund. (We have mentioned before that Jessica is kind of a non-traditional CEO, but if you have the opportunity to get to know her and Jennifer, their combined creativity and passion for giving back are positively inspiring.)

Keith reflects on his experience of working with Powerhouse, “Jessica and her team have been absolutely wonderful to work with. Not only did they take the time to truly understand what we needed to get done, but they worked very quickly to get some of our items done right away. The brand standards that they developed for us were useful immediately. Their assistance with some of our campaigns really helped us track our progress.”

The services and deliverables that Powerhouse provided for The Children’s Hunger Project included
• Brand Standards Sheet
• Giving Tuesday Campaign Plan and Graphics
• Child Champion/Ambassador Toolkit
It was an incredibly positive experience for both organizations to work together and accomplish something meaningful and impactful, and it’s a dreamy scenario all around. Keith and his team at The Children’s Hunger Project are passionate to go to work every day with the ability to focus on the things they love to do and all the good that they can do in their community for children. Jessica and Jennifer go to work for Powerhouse every day feeling passionate about being in the position to provide vital support to many incredibly deserving nonprofit organizations, like TCHP, who may otherwise not have the time and resources required to manage every aspect in-house.

It can be nearly impossible for many nonprofit leaders to find the time and budget to onboard new staff in each of many key skillsets that help businesses thrive—such as strategic planning and marketing, social media campaign design and management, grant writing, internal and external communications, website design, and graphic design. That’s where Powerhouse comes in and becomes your support team solution, giving you the time and energy to focus on your strengths and achieve your most desired goals for your organization.

This month, Powerhouse is focusing on the topic of self-care for freelancers and business owners/CEOs. While we learned about all the hard work that the team at The Children’s Hunger Project is doing to help children in the community, we also asked Keith to share his advice as an executive director/CEO on the importance of self-care and how he practices this in his personal and professional life. (First, he laughed.) Then, he acknowledged, “Honestly, I struggle with this. Work/life balance is difficult, but also one of the things I love about my job. My work is my professional life and my social life. I attend events on the weekends and in the evening that support our cause. It is wonderful to meet new people who also support our organization.” As for his personal life, “Personal fitness is a big priority for me. Although I do have a ‘sweet tooth,’ I work out and try to stay active.” And professionally, he says, “I push myself hard. I do not mind working nights and weekends because I love my job. As the saying goes, ‘Get a career following your passion and you will never work a day in your life.’”

Keith shares with us that TCHP is going to continue to grow in 2020, and he is very proud of their accomplishments this past year as well as their focus on sustainability and careful planning going forward. “My proudest moment with TCHP is that we received a large estate gift from a gentleman who passed away. As a board of directors, we have carefully planned to make this money work for us as we continue to grow and feed more kids in the future.” They have big plans for 2020, and Keith says, “Our goal is to add three to five more schools and serve more children in the county. Currently, we are serving over 2,100 kids every week at 46 elementary schools. There are over 1,000 kids still on our waiting list. We need to do more.”

If there is one thing that Keith and the TCHP team wish people knew about The Children’s Hunger Project, it would be that anyone can help make a difference. “One of our biggest fundraisers is our Health First Fight Child Hunger 5K,” Keith says. “This is a joint fundraiser for TCHP and the Sharing Center of Central Brevard. The event is Saturday, January 11 at Viera High School. The race begins at 8:00 a.m. This is a very family/dog-friendly run. People come out and run, many walk, but it is all about raising money to feed local kids. We will have a live band there and a FREE pancake breakfast for everyone after the race.”

If you don’t have a child in elementary school, it can be hard to feel personally connected to this need. But for savvy business owners, retirees, local colleges, and large employers in the community, this issue matters deeply. Being hungry at school is part of a larger economic picture. When you have young kids who can’t focus on learning because they are hungry and uncomfortable, or not getting enough nutrition to keep them healthy, the wider community is impacted, both now and in the future. Children who grow up participating in and being successfully involved in their school education become the future economic support of their community. They are the future employers and employees, nurses and doctors caring for an aging population, and future educators. And, yes, as the building block for every step of education that follows, early childhood education matters. Bringing these children out of hunger is the key to giving them a strong start in life and in education—and that is the basic building block of a healthy community.

You can read more about The Children’s Hunger Project here:
www.facebook.com/thechildrenshungerproject
thechildrenshungerproject.org