Weekend Survival Kit program returns

If you had asked Jim Ramos two weeks agohow long it would take to restart a program that had providedsupplemental food to elementary school children two weekends a monthfor 33 Lansing-area schools, he would have said January at the earliest.

Ramos certainly didn’t imagine a plancoming together to restore the Weekend Survival Kit program to 15Lansing elementary schools and seven area schools in two weeks — but ithas.

“We’re hoping to make our first delivery Nov. 3 to the 22 schools,” Ramos said.“I just can’t express my gratitude for all these public officials doingthis on their own time for these children they don’t know.”

Ramos, along with a team of communityorganizers including Paul Shaheen of the Ingham County food systemsgroup, Kathe Smith from the Mid-Michigan Food Bank and Randy Bell fromIngham County MSU Extension, have been meeting regularly to try andsustain the program, which ended in August. The Food Bank had beenrunning the program but had to stop when the Mid-Michigan chapter ofthe American Red Cross, which runs the Food Bank as a chapter service,was forced to make cuts. The Red Cross provided the administrativesupport for the program.

With the program in limbo, the city of Lansing, one of the program’s major contributors, has stopped funding it.

The Food Bank is applying to becomeindependent of the Red Cross, which would allow it to restart the kitson its own, but the process has been slow, Shaheen said.

“There’s no delays, it’s just a process,” said Alison Bono, regional director of communications for the Mid-Michigan Red Cross.

The process began last July when the RedCross Board of Trustees decided to divest itself of the Food Bank so itcould fund other priorities, Bono said. A Red Cross committee isstudying how best to proceed with the divestiture. The Red Cross ownsthe building the Food Bank is housed in, Bono said. It also hasemployees that work in the Food Bank and completes all of the FoodBank’s accounting.

If the proposal goes through, the RedCross would be able to concentrate more on its core mission, which nolonger includes food, and the Food Bank would be its own entity,allowing it to pursue the programs it wants.

“I think it’s a win-win situation and wejust have to get through the details,” Bono said. While Bono said thebelieved the deal would go through eventually, there was no way topredict how long it would stay in committee or when it would befinalized, she said.

Ramos said having the Food Bank’s fullsupport and resources would make running the Survival Kit programeasier in terms of coordinating food orders and assembling kits.

“Things would be a ton easier if (RedCross) would just release the Food Bank,” Ramos said. “This is anawesome program and I know they were very disappointed when they weretold they had to stop.”

Bell said he hopes to run fooddeliveries twice a month from November until May, but still needsvolunteers and additional financing to make it happen. He estimates theprogram will cost $80,000 to complete based on costs from last year,but did not know how much the group collected already because it wasstill being totaled from various sources. Ramos also did not know thecurrent financial state of the project, only that it was below what wasneeded to last until May. Volunteers are asked to contact NorthWestInitiative, e-mail Ramos at jramosfam@yahoo.com or call him at (517)862-1605. Anyone looking to make a contribution should contact Ramos aswell, Ramos said.

“Everybody just chipped in a little and we figured out a way to make it work,” Bell said. “The need is not going away.”

Make a contribution

NorthWest Initiative is looking for foodor monetary contributions to continue the Weekend Survival Kit programfor 22 Lansing area schools.

Contact James Ramos at (517) 862-1605 or e-mail him at jramosfam@yahoo.com.