Leveraging Resources to Feed Kids

The Knights of Columbus Council 10373 and Assembly 3229 at St. Elizabeth of Hungary Catholic Church located in Pflugerville combined their resources with the Back Pack for Kids program at church and then partnered with the local school district and its affiliated education foundation to provide meals for elementary aged children on the weekends. The foundation matched the $1500 donation from the Knights and the Back Pack for Kids program thereby making a total of $3 000 available to provide meals locally.To top it off the Back Pack for Kids program at church chipped in over 40 bags of groceries as well.In the end everyone involved was a winner as a result of this creative partnership that leveraged local resources.

Sir Knight Bill Thomas who serves Treasurer for Council #10373 has led the Back Pack for Kids program and has partnered with the Pflugerville School District for the last seven years to provide meals for elementary aged children on the weekends . With all the restrictions in place due to the Covid -19 Coronavirus Pandemic, the program has been unable to meet with the students or their parents to provide the food.

Because of his extensive experience SK Thomas was asked to join a task force to figure out how to provide food safely to the kids on the weekend. The task force included not only the school district but also the district's fundraising arm the Pflugerville Education Foundation.

With safety as the task force s guiding principle the school district set-up a meeting site and the school counselors contacted the parents to inform them where to come and pick up food. This way the safety aspects of people arriving at the distribution point could be controlled by the school district t

As a result of the strong working relationships forged during the task force meetings the Foundation offered$10,000 in matching funds for all contributions including the combined $1 500 contribution from the Council Assembly and Back Pack for Kids program at St Elizabeth's Church up to $10 ,0 00.

This effort highlights the leadership of the Knights of Columbus in helping to ensure kids in our local community don t go hungry even though their regular weekend food supply has been disrupted by the pandemic. And by partnering with other local organizations programs and leaders the Knights provided pivotal leadership and were able to leverage their resources to make them go further and serve more kids than otherwise would have been possible. This was a huge win (for the Knights), a win (for the community and a win for the elementary school kids and their families.