This way the Food 4 Thought program is able to bring food to hungry families, while rewarding kids for their hard work and helping them do better in their classes. The program has gotten great response from both kids and their parents. Currently there are 2,850 schoolchildren participating at 31 sites. Kids talk about their satisfying experience of bringing a bag of food home and seeing the look on their siblings' faces. The response from parents has been great too.
Parents love it.
Imagine having two kids and each brings home 15 pounds of food a week, it makes the paycheck stretch much further. Since the transition from welfare to work, there has simply been a shift for many of the food bank's clients - from being unemployed, to being underemployed. The program has been so successful that tutoring programs are now coming directly to the food bank to sign up. Unfortunately there is a growing waiting list, as there is not always the necessary funding to run the site. The San Joaquin Food Bank serves a seven county area in a predominantly rural area of Northeastern California.